


Space station archimedes

by slaaneshiplaguedoctor



Category: Warhammer 40.000
Genre: Adepta Sororitas (Warhammer 40.000), Adeptus Mechanicus (Warhammer 40.000), Aftermath of Torture, Arena Combat, Bathing/Washing, Canon-Typical Violence, Chaos, Dildos, Drugs, Drukhari | Dark Eldar (Warhammer 40.000), Eventual Smut, F/F, F/M, Heresy, I know the skaven are only in warhammer fantasy but this is my fanfiction goddamn it., Lesbians in Space, Necrons, Skaven, Slaanesh, Stuttering, Threats of Rape/Non-Con, Threats of Violence, Torture, Tyranids (Warhammer 40.000), Xenophobia, female skaven, mentions to slaanesh, noise marines - Freeform, plague marines - Freeform, references to khorne, world's angriest roomba
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-01-06
Updated: 2021-03-13
Packaged: 2021-03-17 04:08:33
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 49
Words: 48,460
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28593747
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/slaaneshiplaguedoctor/pseuds/slaaneshiplaguedoctor
Summary: After being wounded in battle, imperial guardsman Olivia medine finds herself living aboard Space station archimedes. Archimedes is dedicated to studying xenos. She's also the new assistant to the tech priestess mireille.Shennanigans ensue.
Comments: 7
Kudos: 22





	1. Chapter 1

Chapter One (Olivia’s POV) 

The battle is finally going well. You and your regiment have been fighting the foul greenskins for 16 weeks. And for a long time, it wasn’t going well. Thousands were murdered by the orkz. You saw a man get his head bitten off by an ork, another one got stomped by a nob, and another one got decapitated by a flying snotling. (Ok, that one was kind of funny.) But other than that, the battle has been horrific. You put several laz-rounds in a gretchen's body, causing a giant hole to be blown into it. Your squad surrounds the factory that the orkz have holed up in. This is the last bastion of orkz on this planet. Your squad enters and is immediately attacked by orkz. 2 of them charge holding gruesome looking knives and guns. The head of the guy next to you explodes in a fountain of gore, splattering you with a combination of blood, brains, and bone shards. The two attacking orkz are put down but then an even bigger ork appears. He's balancing a gigantic gun on his shoulder. It's made out of laz-guns, shotguns, and machine guns crudely welded together. The ork smiles evilly, revealing a mouth full of sharp teeth. Before you can react, it pulls the trigger of its gun. It roars out a deafening barrage of gunfire. Suddenly, you're hit by its projectiles and knocked back. Indescribable pain shoots through your body. You feel your blood seeping through your clothes and onto the floor. You look down and are dumb struck with fear. Your right arm, both of your legs and part of your abdomen has been horribly damaged by the orkz weapon. If you don't receive medical help as soon as possible, you're going to die. You make a quick, desperate prayer to the emperor that you won't die here. You feel someone pick you up before you pass out.


	2. Chapter 2

Chapter two (Mireille's POV) 

This isn't your idea of fun. The station has been repurposed from a xenos research center to an impromptu hospital due to the battle that happened on a planet near-ish here. So instead of xenos specimens and corpses, the station is filled with injured and dying guardsmen. The station's incinerator is burning full time to deal with the flow of dead bodies. You get the feeling Sigurdsson doesn't really care if the guardsmen live or die. Which would be just like him. That twat.   
You're tending to the wounds and bodies of the newest shipment of guardsmen. It's bad. You're looking at horrifically infected gretchen bites, men mutilated by gunfire or explosives, crushed rib cages, limbs torn off, and in one case: gonorrhea.   
You write up injuries on your data-slate when you hear sobbing from one of the cots. You sigh sadly. Someone's probably about to die. You go over to comfort them in their final moments. The guard on the cot is a woman with Caramel colored skin. Her injuries are extensive and horrific. Her arms, right leg, and part of her abdomen have been severely damaged by what looks to be a combination of laz-gun and slug rounds. The wounds are infected and you can see gangrene forming. The woman grabs your robe with her one good hand. She's trembling with mortal terror. "I'm dying. I don't want to die. Pl-please don't let me die." You know there's other patients to attend to, you know that she'll probably die even if you try to intervene because of her wounds and her infection. But you feel like you have to help her. "Alright, I'll help you."

You take her to your personal operating room. You inject her with anesthesia, cut off her clothing and get to work. Over a period of several hours, you amputate her infected limbs, remove her damaged organs and replace them with artificial ones, remove the damaged tissue of her abdomen and replace it with metal, and finally replace her amputated limbs with prosthetic ones. You step back and look at your work. It took you five hours, but she’s complete. She’ll be fine. You know you’ll get shit for this, but you couldn’t just let her die. You inject her with a drug that'll keep her asleep

You leave the operating room and get back to work. Thankfully, the flow of injured guardsmen has finally stopped so you get back to work. You heal what you can, comfort the dying, and send so many severed limbs and dead bodies to the incinerator. After 4 hours, you lean against a wall and take a deep breath. It’s been a long couple of weeks. “Mireille.” Says an annoyed mechanical voice. You roll your one biological eye, groan and turn to face the source of the voice. It’s exactly who you think it is.


	3. Chapter 3

Chapter 3 (Mireille’s POV)

Sigurdsson. One of three tech priests on this station. Extremely talented with technology. (Both human and xenos.) And you hate him. You’ve hated him for 45 years. He is a pompous, self absorbed, humorless twat. “What do you want?” You ask annoyedly. “Several augmentations have gone missing from my workshop. What have you done with them?” “Maybe you just misplaced them? Your workshop is fucking gigantic.” “Not likely. I have a literal photographic memory. So I KNOW you took the augments.” “Okay. Maybe I did, what are you going to do about it, you overconfident little grease smear?” He makes an angry hissing noise from his vocal implant. “I’ll take back what belongs to me.” “Good luck with that. Besides, you hadn’t touched those augments in..ten years? So fair’s fair.” “IT’S STILL MY PROPERTY YOU BARELY MECHANICAL WHORE!” He screams out in binary. Suddenly, the guardswoman you operated on stumbles out of your laboratory and falls into the hallway. She looks barely awake and extremely high. “Shit. Looks like the drugs weren’t nearly as potent as I thought they would be.” You think to yourself. Sigurdsson looks at her, enhancing her image with his optic implants before looking at you with a withering glare. “So that’s what you used my augments for? That’s a complete waste of resources! Fenror will hear about this.” He starts storming off. “Go ahead, no dick. Go whine to fenror. Nothing will come of it. Like it always does whenever you throw a bitch fit.” You tell him in binary. He yells a particularly foul curse to you in binary while flipping you off before walking off to cry to fenror. You then turn to help the guardswoman.


	4. Chapter 4

Chapter 4: (Olivia’s POV)

You don’t know where you are. You woke up in a strange laboratory with your limbs feeling strange and cold. If you’re not alive, this is a really strange afterlife. You hear a faint metal clanking and look up to see a member of the famed Adeptus Mechanicus. A blurred tall red robed melding of flesh and metal. Both horrific and beautiful at the same time.   
You hear them saying something that you can’t understand. It just sounds like a vague mechanical rumbling coming from them. They gently pick you up and take you inside their laboratory. You feel safe in their strong metallic arms. 

Inside the laboratory, the tech priest puts a cloak on you. You’re delighted. A holy mechanicus gave you a gift. The emperor has given you a good afterlife for a lifetime of loyal service to his holy name. They pour something into a golden chalice and hand it to you. You cannot wait to partake in this holy elixir. You drain it in one gulp, feeling it’s warmth going down your throat and spilling down your neck. You wrinkle your nose at the taste. You were expecting ambrosia; pure blissful liquid. Instead, it's the bitter taste of..recaff? Recaff mixed with a vaguely chemical taste. You look back at the tech priest. They're slowly but surely coming into focus. You look down at the chalice. It's not a chalice. It's a metal mug with lukewarm recaff in it. That's when the realization hits you. You're not dead in a heavenly afterlife. You're in a laboratory on a research station in space, drinking a cup of bad recaff, and you're completely naked except for a spare adeptus mechanicus robe. You hiss in embarrassment and pull the cloak around your body. "Oh, fuck." You mutter to yourself. "Welcome back to the land of the living." You look at the tech priest with confusion. Tech priestess actually. "Did I die at some point?" She shakes her head. "No actually. But you would have if I didn't help you. I had to replace your damaged limbs, organs, and part of your abdomen." You look down at your body. The limbs damaged by the orks' deff gun have been replaced by silvery colored prosthetics. There's a metal carapace/flesh covering the part of your abdomen that was hurt. "By the throne." You say quietly. "I'm sorry that it had to be this way, but you would've died otherwise." You look back up at the tech priestess. She’s not nearly as mechanical as you were expecting. She’s about 6 and a half feet tall with blond hair and a curvy build. As for augmentations, she has a green bionic right eye, humanoid prosthetic arms and legs, a vocal implant, and 4 metal tentacles. She’s actually fairly attractive. Her one biological eye has a glasses lens worn on a chain over it. Her skin has a smattering of freckles on it.   
“So, what’s your name?” She smiles. “Mireille. Yours?” You smile nervously. “Olivia. Private Olivia Medine. Of the gaian guard regiment.” “Yes. I read the details about your guard regiment. Fought on the planet..Attacia Major against an ork invasion.” Her voice is deep and melodic with a hint of a mechanical edge to it. “So..what exactly was in the cup of recaff?” “An antidote to the drugs I pumped into you for the operation. The drugs were supposed to keep you asleep until I could find you some clothes. But I think that that set of drugs either expired or your tolerance to it was way higher than I was expecting.” “So that explains why I was naked in the hallway and thought a cup of recaff was ambrosia from the emperor himself.” Mireille smiles. “By the omnissiah, you were extremely high. Let me get you some clothes.”


	5. Chapter 5

Chapter 5 (Fenror’s pov):  
The past few weeks have been depressing for you. Thousands of guardsmen are dead or dying in your station. Their corpses being thrown into the incinerator instead of being given a proper burial. The omnissiah mourns their deaths. You’re glad that the flow of guardsmen has ceased because they’ve defeated the orks on Attacia Major. So you’ve decided to give these guardsmen as respectful a burial that your station can give. You have the station’s servitors collect the ashes of the guards and pour them into a large metal casket. You weld the coffin shut and put the seal of the adeptus mechanicus on the center of the lid. You then engrave the names of every single guardsmen that died on your station into the metal of the casket. Afterwards, you have the servitors take the casket to the station’s main airlock. They gently put the casket onto the floor of the airlock and exit, leaving you alone with the casket and the souls of the departed guardsmen. You light your incense burner and begin to pray. “Dear omnissiah. These brave men and women have laid their lives down to protect the citizens of the imperium of man and to further your will. They were not able to be granted a proper burial. With this prayer, I ask that you deliver their souls to their home planets so that they may know peace. Amen.” You turn your respirator on, maglock your body to the floor of the airlock bay and press the button that opens the doors to space. The coffin shoots out into space and you watch as it tumbles end over end until it vanishes from sight. “Amen. May you find peace.” You think to yourself. You close the airlock doors and wait for the air to cycle back before you leave. You feel a combination of sadness and relief. Like a great burden has been lifted off your chest. And on the slightly more positive side, there’s a chance that you’ll be able to get some ork specimens from Attacia Major for dissection. “FENROR!” Yells an all too familiar and all too annoying voice. Your feeling of relief is immediately replaced by a feeling of tired annoyance. 

It’s sigurdsson. Of course it’s sigurdsson. Sigurdsson with his thousand groxshit complaints. “What is it?” You sigh out. “Mireille stole some augmentations from my workshop and is using them in a very inefficient manner.” You try desperately to not roll your eyes. “Weren’t those augmentations lying in your workshop for ten years or so?” “Yes. But that doesn't matter. It’s still my property.” ‘You’ve stolen things from her various times. So it’s only fine that she takes a few things from you every now and again.” He clenches his fists and blinks a couple times. “That would be fine…  
Except for what she’s done with it.” “What has she done that angers you so much.” You make a mental broadcast to a servitor to make you a cup of recaff. “She took a random guardswoman and used MY augments on her!” You pause. You can’t say you were expecting that.”Why would she do that, I wonder?” “I don’t fucking know. But I want you to take care of it.” “Fine. I’ll call her up to my office after I have my recaff.”


	6. Chapter 6

Chapter 6: (Olivia's POV)  
While you wait for mireille to return with spare clothes, you try to get used to your new limbs. You look down at your new arm. It's beautifully designed, with the symbol of the adeptus mechanicus engraved into the back of the hand. You gently wiggle your fingers. When you touch your fingers to the palm of your hand, you can feel them touching. It's similar to your sense of touch that your original hand had, yet...somehow different. You then look around the room. You see several operating tables; some clean and some stained with alien blood. You also see various machines that you can't even begin to guess what they do. In part of the room, you see large glass tubes filled with a sickly greenish yellow fluid. Inside the tubes are..something. It's obviously some species of xeno that's unfamiliar to you. The specimens look like giant insects. Their bodies are pale with dark purple chitin. They all have mouths filled with long, knife-like teeth. They're oddly beautiful if you're going to be honest. Built for the sole purpose of killing, and probably extraordinarily efficient at that task. You shiver. From a combination of viewing the specimens and from the general chill of the room. You look away from the xeno specimens and pull the spare robe closer to you. The robe's material is not meant to be the most comfortable thing in existence. It was meant to be durable. But It's comfortable enough for now. You hear the doors open and turn to face mireille. "I found a jumpsuit, some socks and boots. Sorry that I took so long." "It's fine." She hands you the clothing. "Can you look away while I get dressed?" She turns the other way while you get dressed. The jumpsuit is comfier than the robe. And you feel warmer now. "Right, I'm dressed now." Mireille turns around. "So..how do you feel?" "What do you mean?" "You just had a major surgery performed on you today. Some information on your condition would be helpful." "W-well, I feel a bit odd. I have to get used to my new limbs. I also feel kind of cold because It's pretty chilly in this room." She chuckles. ‘I guess it is. I’ve just gotten used to it over the years. Suddenly, your stomach growls. “Sorry. I haven’t eaten since...before my limbs were damaged.” You chuckle slightly. Mireille smiles. “I’ll have one of the servitors bring us some food. In the meantime, we can talk and I can help you get used to your new limbs.” You grab onto her arm and walk around the room. You’re a bit wobbly on your feet, but you’re slowly getting used to it. “I know that the main purpose of this facility is to study xenos, but what species of xenos are those?” You point to the tubes filled with liquid and dead xenos. “Those are tyranids.” “T-tyranids?” “You don’t know about them? They’re one of the greatest threats to the imperium.” “I thought that the orks were the greatest threat to the imperium. Least, that's what I was told by my commissar.” “Well your commissar was either lying or an idiot. The orks are a threat, but they pale in comparison to the tyranids.” “How so?” “Well the orks might ravage a planet, tyranids EAT planets. They strip planets of any and all biomass/usable resources, make new tyranids from the biomass, and then move onto another planet.” She sounds really passionate about this. “If they’re this big of a threat, why haven’t I heard of them?” “There’s a lot that the inquisition doesn’t let people know if they don’t want people to know about it.” “So this tyranid species is super dangerous.” “Species to be accurate. The tyranid race is made out of hundreds of different species. Each with a different purpose. Rippers relay biomass to the digestion pools, zoanthropes are psykers, carnifexes are living battering rams…” “I get it.” You get the feeling that she would’ve kept going unless you stopped her. She blushes slightly. “Sorry. I just don’t get a chance to talk about tyranids often. Fenror’s usually too busy, and sigurdsson doesn’t give a shit because he’s a piece of slime masquerading as a human being.”


	7. Chapter 7

Chapter 7: (Olivia's POV) 

Suddenly, the station's intercom system crackles and someone starts talking. "Mireille, I need you to report to my office as soon as possible. This is not a request, this is an order. And bring the guardswoman with you." There's a loud click as it turns off. Mireille says something in a robotic language you can't understand. But judging by the tone, It's probably swearing. "Are you in trouble?" You ask nervously. She sighs. "Maybe. Maybe not. Follow me." She leads you to the station to a large meeting room. Inside, there are two other tech priests. The first one is slightly frightening to look at. They seem to have replaced all of the flesh that made up their body. They have four robotic eyes, with three of them in a cluster on the left side of their face. Their mouth is covered or replaced by an insectile respirator. Their body is made out of metal. Four barely humanoid prosthetics protrude out of the sides. Two industrial clamp arms and 4 tentacles come out of their back. They're standing on three spider-like legs. When you and mireille enter, their eyes dart to mireille. A soft, deep rumbling comes from their body. You think that counts as laughter for them. The other tech priest at the table is more pleasant to look at. He looks like a man in his mid sixties. But he's probably far older than that. His eyes are biological and a pale blue color. His arms and legs are mechanical, but resemble human limbs instead of whatever the other tech priest has. His mouth is covered by a metal respirator with a long black, metal tube that sticks down a foot. In his right hand, he's holding a mug of recaff. In his other, a gold inlaid pen. "Alright. Now that we're all here, let's get down to brass tacks." His voice is deep and oddly comforting. It reminds you of what your grandfather sounded like before the fever took him. "Riiight. I think the conclusion is obv.." The older one smacks the other in one of his legs. "I am the magos here, not you sigurdsson." Sigurdsson taps his fingers angrily. "I was alerted to this matter by sigurdsson two hours ago. According to him, mireille stole several augmentations from his workshop. Is this true?" Sigurdsson makes an incredulous noise. "What do you mean, is this true? The proof is literally standing in front of us!" Sigurdsson's voice is thin and reedy, with a heavier mechanical edge than the others. "It is true. I thought he wouldn't care because those augmentations had been sitting there unused for a decade or more." Mireille says calmly. "Alright then. I was then told that you had used them in a way that was very inefficient. However, this seems to be a matter of opinion." Sigurdsson gives him a look that screams outrage. “A matter of opinion, sir? She put them on some random guardswoman. For no particular as far as I can tell.” “I had a reason sigurdsson.” Mireille says. “And what reason is that?” Fenror asks. “I saw a certain useful quality in her.” “Useful in what way?” Fenror asks. “Useful as an assistant. An assistant that works with me.” Sigurdsson makes a noise that’s somewhere between a laugh and a groan. “You can’t be serious. You seriously looked at a maimed guardswoman and thought ‘hey, this person will make a great assistant if I patch them up’. I call grox shit.” “It’s called a gut feeling. Something you haven’t had for years. If you ever had it.” Sigurdsson clenches his fists. ‘Alright. Even if you had this ‘gut feeling’, why would you want a human for an assistant? Servitors are far more efficient than humans.” “Well, I actually enjoy the company of humans rather than servitors. Humans have a little thing called, hmm….humanity? They aren’t just soulless amalgamations of flesh and machinery." Fenror makes a noise of agreement. "I see. I can understand your point." BUT SIR!" Sigurdsson yells. "She picked one guardswoman out of the many injured that were on this station." He straightens up unnaturally and slowly walks around the table to mireille. "In faaact….If we review the security footage, while mireille was performing her operation on that guardswoman, several guardsmen died due to lack of care. Why heavily augment one when she could've saved many more?" Mireille gives him an icy glare. "Don't try to guilt me when you're even more guilty of that. If we review the security footage for you, the care you applied was the barest minimum. If that. In fact, the only 'care' you gave to them was making them die as fast as possible." "Alright, Alright. Let's get back to business." Fenror says. Sigurdsson walks back to his spot. "Disregarding your hatred for each other, I think that there's nothing wrong with mireille's request for an assistant." One of Sigurdsson's legs twitches so hard, it scrapes across the floor. "Thank you sir." Mireille says. Sigurdsson grumbles something in binary speak before storming out of the room. "Well, now that he's out of our hair, I want to discuss what your duties will be miss...?" "Olivia. Olivia medine. Sir." He smiles. "Just call me Fenror. You've obviously met mireille and sigurdsson just left to sulk in his workshop. Now back to business. Your duty aboard this station will be to assist mireille in whatever tasks she is doing. This includes handling and dissection of tyranid lifeforms. And some of them might be alive during the dissection. Can you handle this task?” “Yes sir.” “Mireille, are you willing to have her work alongside you as an assistant?” “Of course. That’s why I saved her in the first place.” Fenror smiles. “Well Olivia Medine, welcome to research station archimedes.”


	8. Chapter 8

Chapter 8: (Mirielle’s POV)

“So what’s the deal with you and sigurdsson? This seems a lot more serious than just simple workplace rivalry.” Oliva asks. You sigh. “Oh where to begin with him? Well, we’ve hated each other for decades now. When I first joined archimedes, I thought he was a bit annoying. But a couple months after joining, Fenror had us come to a meeting to discuss our research. Sigurdsson went on and on about the necrons. So I made a joke that he might have a necron fetish. So he said that I was probably mating with the tyranid specimens that were in the station at the time.” Olivia looks at you with surprised disgust. “You..ar-aren’t doing that, are you?” “Omnissiah on his throne, no! I’m not a xenophile. I like humans. And even if I was a xenophile, tyranids don’t have sexual organs. Hell, tyranids don’t even have genders. Aside from genestealers and norn queens, tyranids can’t reproduce.” “Oh..okay. That’s something else I wanted to talk about. Why are you so much less augmented than sigurdsson? I thought that replacing your flesh with machinery was a central tenement to your religion?” “Well..It is true that we must replace our flesh with machinery, the level of augmentation varies from person to person. When we’re not forced to, it’s a matter of personal preference. I fully believe in the omnissiah’s word. But I still enjoy the pleasures of the flesh. Namely; eating, drinking, sleeping, getting wasted on booze, and having sex with a consenting adult. Sigurdsson on the other hand, has removed his need for food, drink, and sleep. Fenror doesn’t need sleep, food or drink. But he still drinks a lot of recaff and takes naps that last weeks when he gets the chance.” “Weeks?” “Oh yeah, he’s perpetually tired. I’ve seen him well rested maybe four times in the 45 years I’ve known him.” “How old are you?” “About 80. I received my augmentations at different times in my life. It was a gradual ramping up to the point that I’m at now. Sigurdsson is 159 years old. And Fenror is 340 years old. You?” “I’m twenty three. So I guess I’m basically a kid compared to you. “ You smirk. “Ehh. Age doesn’t really mean much for the imperium of man.” “Good to hear.” She says nervously. “It’s late. I’ll show you to your quarters. And tomorrow, I’ll give you a tour of this station.”


	9. Chapter 9

Chapter 9: (Olivia’s POV) 

You’re woken up by your stomach growling. You try to ignore it and go back to sleep. But no matter how hard you try, and no matter how comfortable the bed in your quarters is, your stomach refuses to let you sleep. You groan and get out of bed. You put on a pair of pants and go out into the hallway. You don’t know the layout of this place yet, so you know it’s going to be a while before you get used to the place. The hallway's lights are dimmed for the night. That combined with the silence of the station creates an odd feeling. It's weirdly calming. After walking around for a while, you find a cafeteria area. You find a tin of salted fish in the storeroom next to it and decide to have this. You sit down and open the tin. The fish still have their heads. You eat one. It's not great, but you've had way worse. It's infinitely better than corpse starch. "Good morning, Olivia." Says an unfriendly, robotic voice. You cough up the fish you were eating and turn to face the voice's owner. It's sigurdsson. "What are you doing here? You don't need food." He sighs; a completely unnatural sound. "Well, I decided to go on a walk to clear my head. And I ended up here at the same time you did." You're pretty sure that that's complete groxshit. "So I heard through the vox line that you're going to be mireille's assistant." "Yes." "Well….good luck on that." "The fuck are you talking about?" He chuckles. "You do realize that you're going to be handling tyranids right? You don't really know what you're getting yourself into." "They're giant bugs." He twists his body unnaturally and giggles. "Not exactly. Sure, most of them are just giant insects. But there's a lot more to them. How are you going to feel when you have to dissect a genestealer cultist? How are you going to feel when you cut open a...carnifex and a partially digested human falls out of its stomach? And that's just what I'm able to come up with off the top of my head." His tone is smug and singsong-esque. "I can handle it. I've seen plenty of people die and dead bodies." He climbs onto the table and starts walking toward you. "Oh of course. So brave. So brave to watch your comrades die in front of you. And when it was your turn, you pleaded with mireille to save you because you were afraid of dea.." He's cut off by something striking him in the face and knocking him off the table. He screams as he falls into a heap on the floor. He pulls himself up and you see what hit him. There's a throwing knife embedded in his eye. "Piss off sigurdsson." He growls and yanks the knife out of his eye. "Ow. This doesn't have anything to do with you." "Yes it does, considering it was harassment targeting MY assistant." "It was a joke." "We all know that it wasn't a joke. You don't make jokes unless It's at the detriment of someone else. Now piss off before I put another knife in your face." "Fine." He scuttles out of the room and smacks mireille in the shoulder before crawling away to his workshop. Mireille sighs before she sits aside from you. "I'm so sorry that you had to go through that. He treats everyone like shit for no reason. I think It's the only way he can feel pleasure." "If he's this much of an ass, why does he still work here?" "Because he's beyond skilled with technology. He's one of the only people who can begin to understand necron technology. If he was slightly less talented than he is, Fenror would've thrown him out the airlock." "We can only hope, can't we?" She smirks. "Maybe someday. Maybe someday." After you finish the fish, mireille leads you back to your room. "Goodnight. I'll give you a tour of the place tomorrow."

You wake up to the lights of the station suddenly going from their dim night mode to a bright daytime mode. You squeeze your eyes shut and try to get at least a few more minutes of sleep. After an hour of trying, you sigh and get up. You flex the fingers of your prosthetic hand. You're still getting used to your new limbs. You look down at the artificial skin covering your abdomen. You pinch it with your remaining organic hand. It feels almost like skin, but It's tougher than normal flesh. There's a metal alloy imbued into it. You then look up to the shower in your room. You're pretty sure that your new augmentations can handle water. Why wouldn't they? But you know that electrical parts and water don't mix well. You decide to risk it. If it goes badly, mireille will hopefully help you. You strip completely naked and step inside the shower. You vaguely feel the chill of the tiles under your feet. Though you've only had them for a short period of time, you've noticed that your prosthetics sense things differently than your old, organic ones. You turn on the shower and wince. The water's cold. Very cold. With a little adjustment of the shower's knob, the water goes from icy cold to delightfully warm. You sigh and close your eyes in contentment. When you were in the guard, showers were somewhat of a luxury. You got very used to the smell of unwashed bodies. And whenever you got to take a shower, it was short and cold. But here, you get to savor the heat.   
After spending too long in the shower, you step out. You haven't felt this clean in...ever. You realize that you forgot to bring a towel into the bathroom. You know there's one in your sleeping quarters. When you enter the sleeping area, you see mireille sitting on your bed reading a book. She notices you and looks up directly at you. You fight your urge to squeal. You cover your breasts with your arm and cross your legs to hide your nether region. "You could've knocked!" You say nervously. "I did. But you were in the shower for about half an hour. So I decided to wait here." "I'm completely naked, ma'am." "I've noticed." She says bluntly. "I was expecting you to be wearing a towel or you to have brought extra clothing into the bathroom. But I can see I was mistaken." "Will you please hand me my towel and the clothes I laid out, ma'am?" She tosses the towel and the articles of clothing to you. You catch them, thank her before retreating back into the bathroom. You dry yourself off and get dressed. When you re-enter the sleeping quarters, mireille stands up. "Are you decent now?" "Yes. And next time, please wait outside my room. I'm not a fan of being seen as naked as the day I was born, ma'am." "I understand. But first off, there's no need to call me 'ma'am'. Mireille will work just fine. Secondly, you don't need to be embarrassed about being naked in front of me. I've seen plenty of nude bodies. Of many species. So you're just one more." You don't say anything, trying to think of a response. "However, I will say I must say you've taken good care of your body.” You feel yourself starting to blush. Thankfully, Mireille had turned to leave the room. “Follow me.”


	10. Chapter 10

Chapter 10 (Olivia’s POV)  
“Right, first up is my quarters and laboratory. This is going to be where you’ll spend most of your time. The laboratory, I mean. Not my quarters.” Mireille says. She lets you into the laboratory. It’s the same room from yesterday. But now that you’re completely sober, you can get a better look at it. Most of the operating tables are connected to the machines you saw yesterday. Most of the machines hang from the ceiling on guiding rails and have multiple arms that end in either sawblades, syringes, scalpels, sensors, flexible cameras,etc. It really looks like it wouldn’t be difficult to turn this place from a medical facility to a torture chamber. Mireille walks up to one of the operating tables and pushes some of the instruments aside. “Right, any and all specimens get dissected on these tables. Your job will be operating the machines, holding open the specimen’s chest, removing specific organs, injecting them with more tranquilizers, and helping me put down a specimen if it wakes up mid vivisection. Which….has happened before. It’s why I have a bionic eye.” She chuckles. Didn’t restrain that one ravener and it nearly killed me.” That’s an awfully calm way to describe nearly dying to a giant space insect. “After dissection, I tend to leave disposal to the station’s servitors. They take the bodies to the station’s incinerator.” “What about those specimens in the containers?” Mireille shrugs. “Those are specimens that I decided to keep because….I haven’t gotten around to disposing of them. I really should get rid of them.” She sucks in a breath of air. “Anyway, onto the next place.”

She leads you to a hall filled with some cells. They’re made out of ceramite and steel. “These are the specimen holding cells. This is where we keep our live specimens before dissection. They have been tested and have been found to be more than capable of holding whatever is put in them.” “So how do you remove the specimens?” You ask nervously, getting an image of going in there with a tranquilizer gun. “The cells have gas outlets embedded in the walls. When we need them to, they emit tranquilizer gas that knocks out whatever is in there. Except if it’s Drukhari. If it’s Drukhari, they need to be taken down with electro-staffs. And sometimes, electricity doesn't work. And we let the servitors incapacitate them. Once the specimen is knocked out, the servitors take them to either mine or fenror’s laboratory.”

Mireille leads you to a..wildlife exhibit? There’s a large pit in this part of the station. The station floor just drops into a sheer cavernous pit. There’s a force field separating you from falling into the pit. Inside the pit are various holes, hiding places, a pool of brackish water, several tires, and what looks like super tough dog toys. “Wh-what is this?” “This is the tyranid pit.” “Excuse me?” You ask, pretty sure that you didn’t just hear that. “Yes. The tyranid pit. We keep a tyranid hormagaunt. Subject G-45.” “But..but why though?” You ask. “I honestly don’t really know why. We just have one. Admittedly, he has a really nice looking color scheme. But I guess it’s the station’s pet. Even if he got the chance, he would kill us without batting an eye. But for the most part, we just throw chunks of meat every now and again.” “How often is every now and again?” “Like...once every week. He doesn’t seem to care that much. Ooh, here he is.” Subject G-45 slinks out of whatever hole it was hiding in. And you get your first look at a living member of the tyranid race. It's like a combination of an insect and a dinosaur. It has six limbs, two of which are giant, sword-like spikes. Its mouth is full of dagger-like teeth. A large tongue lolls out of his mouth. His body is covered by tough chitin. He does have an interesting color, you must admit. His base color is dark grey with extremely bright blue accents. The blue almost looks like It's glowing. "Good Morning sunshine." Mireille says pleasantly. G-45 looks up at you two and snarls. It turns to face you before suddenly leaping straight up at you. You step back in fear considering that's a twenty five foot jump. It swipes at the force field with one sword claw. The force field does its job and keeps it from slicing mireille in half. It falls back to the floor. "Did you not sleep well?" Mireille asks G-45 cheekily. G-45 hisses what you can only assume is tyranid curse words. "Oh come on. There's no need to be rude." He cocks his head to get a better look at you. "This is Olivia. She'll be my assistant from now on. So get used to seeing her." She really is treating this killing machine like a dog. "If that force field wasn't there, it would've killed both of us." You say nervously. Mireille chuckles. "Of course he tried to kill us. He's a tyranid. Even when they're separated from the hivemind, they're still super dangerous." "The hive?" Mireille interrupts you. "Honestly, you're pretty lucky to see him attack like that. He rarely does that anymore." "Any-anymore?" You stutter out. "Oh yeah, when he was first in the pit, he did it all the time. But he's stopped doing it as often. The last time he tried to do this was when we were feeding him." You get a horrifying image of him jumping out of the pit and running amok on the station. Mireille must have realized what you're thinking. "Ah, don't worry. The feeding areas are at the bottom of the pit.” You then get a picture of him dragging her into the pit. “The slots are way too small for him to squeeze through and strong enough that he can't wrench them open. And there’s a forcefield that only lets things go through from one side.” She continues. "So, he's not getting out?" You ask. "Unless we suffer a complete power failure, there's not a chance in hell he'll get out." "Thank the emperor." You mutter in relief. G-45 makes a clicking noise before sliding into his pool of water. "Well, he seems to have lost interest. On with the tour." Mireille leads you to a room full of exercise equipment. "And this is the gym. It admittedly doesn't get much use because all of us are mechanicus, but I use it every now and again. Mostly cardio. You can use it too during your free time." "I actually plan to do that. I w-worked hard on my physique. It helped with training and the exercises they had us go through in the guard. Not that it helped much against the orks. Or saving my comrades." Mireille looks at you with sympathetic eyes. "Look, It's not your fault. They're orks. There's no way an unmodified human can compare to one in terms of physical strength. And it was a battlefield. People die a lot in battles." You sigh. "I know. I know." You push down those feelings. It's finally hitting you just how goddamn lucky you are now. 

Mireille then leads you to a large room. It's filled with hundreds of bookshelves and thousands of books. There’s also a pile of dataslates. “Woah.” You say in awe. “I know. It really took me by surprise when I first came here. Fenror had this installed so he could read in his spare time. And he really loves reading. It probably is only tied with his love of recaff and 4 week long naps.” “Four weeks?” You ask; genuinely surprised. “Oh yeah. He operates on a pretty weird sleep cycle. He stays awake for four months on average. And then he sleeps for a month. But if he gets really overworked, he’ll take a nap for a week. So we probably won’t see him for a while due to the massive workload we’ve all had over the past couple weeks." "So he actually sleeps for an entire month? How?" Mireille shrugs.``I don't really know how it works. I know that It's chemically and mechanically induced because I know that he can't go to sleep without help." "Do his augmentations prevent him from getting sleep naturally?" You ask. "Yes." Fenror says, stepping out from behind a bookshelf. "Oh, good morning Fenror." Mireille says. "Morning." He's lowered his hood, exposing his head. He has thin, grey hair and several augments in his skull. "At one point, I received an augmentation that removed my need to sleep. Which, while useful for the duty I was serving to the imperium at the time, I regard as the worst mistake I ever made." He says somberly. "What was your duty?" You ask. He sighs. "Battlefield maintenance. For the first 200 something years of my service to the imperium, I fixed vehicles and fought many xenos. I've killed so many xenos and seen so many good people die. And...I got tired of it. Both tired from constant fighting and tired because I didn't sleep. For hundreds of years, I didn't sleep. And it has left me permanently tired." He shakes his head. "So I decided to do something that would help the imperium without having to fight. It took me decades to get through the bureaucracy, but I finally established research station archimedes. And I could finally...get some sleep. Which is what I'm planning to do soon." "S-So why are you here?" You ask. "I'm taking a book from the library so I can read it to relax before I go to sleep. Now, I’m going to let you continue showing Olivia around the station.” “Goodnight fenror. Have a good nap.” Mireille says. Fenror nods his head and leaves the room. “We won’t see him for a week.”  
“So what type of books are in this library?" You ask. "Oh all types. There's philosophy, history, fantasy novels, horror novels, biology textbooks, and erotica." "E-erotica?" You stammer out. "Yes. Quite a lot. It took me a long time to get them, but I was able to obtain them." "Oh. It's here specifically because of you." Mireille smirks. "Oh yeah. I'm not ashamed to say that I'm human. And I have human desires. Sexual desires included. And these help...calm them." She leads you to the bookshelf of erotica. There's a lot. It looks like pretty standard schlock, but there looks to be some pretty high quality material there. And the most of the high quality material appears to be specially female on female material. "That's..a lot." "It's fine. Sigurdsson bitched about it, but what else is new? Fenror allowed it as long as it didn't interfere with my duties."


	11. Chapter 11

Chapter 11 (Mireille's POV)

"And that's the tour. The areas I haven't covered are the ones that you probably won't be going to. Those are Fenror's quarters and laboratories, the reactor, the incinerator, and sigurdsson's area." You say. "Yeah, I really don't want to go anywhere near him." Olivia says. "The only reason you or I would go to fenror's area is if he needs our help with dissecting a particularly large amount of specimens." Olivia's stomach suddenly growls loudly. She blushes and nervously smiles. "Sorry. I haven't eaten since last night. An-And I only had some tinned fish." "You don't need to be embarrassed about your bodily functions. I might be a tech priest, but I still enjoy most of the same things that unmodified people do. And I think I've told you this before." "Y-you did ma'am. But I've gone my whole life believing that the adeptus mechanicus are these...more than human. Almost as impressive as the space marines." You smile and put a hand on her shoulder. "Well, we're human. All of us. Even Sigurdsson is a human. And we both are the subjects of the omnissiah. Now I'm honestly hungry as well. Let's get something to eat." 

(X-AR-7's POV)  
You're woken up from your resting station by a signal from the bastards that own you. You hate them. Them and their damn imperium. They're the ones who paralyzed you and grafted you into this horrific amalgamation of flesh and machinery. But they didn't do it right. You're completely aware of this horrible situation. You get an alert to perform a stupid task. You trundle through the halls and make a silent prayer to your god Khorne. You hope that he'll answer your prayer and grant you the ability to rip these fuckers to shreds. You enter the room that they're in. The bitch and the new one are in there. You charge them and silently scream "BLOOD FOR THE BLOOD GOD! SKULLS FOR THE SKULL THRONE!" You're about to ram them when your chassis stops against your will. The GODDAMN SENSORS STOPPED YOU AGAIN! GODDAMN IT ALL TO FUCKING HELL! 

(Olivia’s POV)  
A servitor comes trundling into the room. It’s on two caterpillar treads, so it looks kind of like a miniature forklift. “Ah, X-AR-7. He’s the station’s main servitor. Could you get us some caff while I cook breakfast for Olivia and I?” He makes a cheerful chirp. “Thank you.” X-AR-7 trundles off. Mireille shrugs. “I don’t know why I ask him to do things and thank him when he does them. It’s not like he has a choice. He’s a servitor.” “Is it me, or did he look...really angry?” You ask. “He always looks like that. I hope it’s just a quirk of his programming and not that he's aware of his situation. I know that we're supposed to see them as blessed by the omnissiah, but a sentient servitor has to live one of the worst existences in the galaxy." You breathe in through your teeth sharply at that thought. The servitor comes back in with two steaming cups of recaff. Mireille grabs them with two of her tentacles and pats him on the head. "Thanks X, you can go now." He makes a happy beep before rolling away. Mireille hands you one of the cups of recaff. You blow on it a couple times before taking a sip. It's recaff, alright. It's hot and bittersweet. But you've had way worse recaff. 

A while later, mireille comes back with two plates of food. They're laden with eggs, grox bacon, and rehydrated potato shreds. Mireille nervously twiddles her fingers. "Sorry if It's not that great. High quality food isn't really a priority for Fenror." You chuckle. "This looks amazing to me. I've had so much worse stuff when I was in the guard. I knew guys who would kill for a meal like this." Mireille smiles and you see several of her tentacles waving happily. You take a couple bites of the food. It's amazingly better than what you used to eat.


	12. Chapter 12

Chapter twelve (Olivia's POV)

Two weeks later, you get woken up by mireille gently prodding you. "Mmm. What time is it?" You mutter. "About 3:30." "W-why have you woken me up this early?" You ask groggily. Mireille smiles excitedly. "We've gotten a huge shipment of tyranid corpses. So I need you to get dressed in like, 15 minutes tops.” She looks way too excited for her own good. You shift over in your bed. Mireille grabs you out of the bed. “UPSA DAISY!” She yells before gently putting you on the floor. “Alright! I’m up! I”M UP!” You yell at her. “Good! Get sluiced down, get dressed and meet me in the main loading dock. And don’t dawdle!” She quickly walks out of the room, leaving you to shower. 

You go to the main loading dock. Inside it are several large steel boxes with reinforced bands and electrical output grids built into them. “W-Why do the corpses need giant steel boxes with all this stuff attached to them?” You ask. “In case the dumb insects aren’t completly dead.” Sigurdsson says while absent mindedly writing things down on a data slate. His tone is of complete disinterest. Mireille looks at her data slate and vibrates? “Oooooh, we’ve got some quality specimens this time. There’s two hormagaunts, a harpy, a ravener, some gargoyles, about 5 dozen rippers in various conditions (gasp) and an Exocrine!” “A what?” Mirielle taps the largest box. “Basically a living artillery platform. Their…”   
“Their brains are so small that they can’t move and fire at the same time. Yes. We know. You’ve told us forty seven times. I took count.” Sigurdsson says bluntly. “I didn’t know it.” You say annoyedly. Sigurdsson scoffs. “Well you do now. Along with the thousands of ‘fun facts’ she spouts about tyranids when she gets excited.” Sigurdsson walks off, leaving you and mireille alone. “Asshole.” Mireille says before sighing and calling the servitors. “So...exocrines?” You ask politely. Mirielle smiles. “Yes. So stupid, they can’t walk and fire at the same time. In fact, the cannon on its back is actually more intelligent than the exocrine.” “The cannon is alive?” Mireille nods. “It’s a symbiotic relationship. The cannon fires itself. The creature merely acts as a moving artillery platform. The cannon is a biomorph.” “Biomorph?” You ask. “I’ll explain when we get into the lab.” 

Later in the lab, the servitors open the boxes and put the tyranid specimens onto the operating tables. It strikes you just how many different species of tyranids there actually are. “So which is which?” Mirielle smiles. “The tiny ones are the rippers, the small flying ones are the gargoyles, the large flying one is the harpy, the medium sized one with dirt still one it is the ravenor, and the giant one with the cannon on its back is the exocrine.” 

The exocrine is a particularly gigantic creature. It’s the size of a large tank with a gigantic cannon on it’s back. “So...the cannon is alive as well? You called it a biomorph?” “Yes. A biomorph. Specifically a plasma cannon biomorph.” “But what is a biomorph?” You ask. “Ah, guess I forgot to tell you. A biomorph is a separate tyranid organism that’s attached to another tyranid to improve said tyranid. For example, say you’re the hivemind and you’ve got a gaunt. You decide to make the gaunt a ranged unit, so you attach a fleshborer cannon to the gaunt. Now, the gaunt can fire the fleshborer beetles at an enemy. These beetles are frenzied by the firing and then burrow into the victim’s body. And that’s just one of many different types of biomorph.” Mireille says. “Interesting. Are the guns on the gargoyles biomorphs as well?” You ask. “Yes. Those appear to be spike rifles. Which embed themselves into their targets and explode once their inside. Similar to the impaler cannon.” “I see..” You say. Mireille opens the exocrine's maw and sticks her arm inside. "Is that safe?" You ask nervously. "Not completely if I'm honest. It might be dead, but I'm looking for an acid gland." "I-is that a biomorph that gives a tyranid acid spit?" Mireille nods. "Yes. Tends to be attached to carnifexes, but they have been known to be attached to exocrines or other tyranids. It could dissolve my arm in a couple seconds if I accidentally pierce it." She grabs something and pulls out a fleshy sack. "Annnd, there we go. The universe's deadliest hacky sack." She says cheerfully. "That's disgusting." You say. "Guess the hivemind decided to give this guy a close range defense." "What is...the hivemind?" You ask. "Ahh. Guess I've never gotten around to explaining that. Basically, all tyranids are more or less controlled by an intelligence that we call the hivemind. I don't think It's a single organism, It's probably the collective consciousness of the entire race. The hivemind decides where the fleest go, what troops are used, what biomorphs are used, what tactics are used, etc. But not all tyranids have a direct connection to the hivemind. There's what's known as synaptic and nonsynaptic creatures. The synaptic creatures are used as commanders to the non-synaptic creatures. Once separated from the synaptic creatures, the non-synaptic creatures are basically animals. Very dangerous animals, but they can't use complicated tactics. G-45 is a non-synaptic tyranid. If we brought a live synaptic tyranid, he would be able to act more intelligently. Which is why we aren’t EVER going to bring a live synaptic tyranid onto the station. That’s just asking for trouble.” You shudder at that thought. Mirielle has the machines move the exocrine so she can access the cannon. “Alright. Let’s get to work.” 

After two hours, you and mireille manage to remove the cannon from the exocrine’s body. Both of you are spattered with ichor and alien blood. Mirielle wipes her hands on her pants. “Alrighty then. That looks good.” “I feel sticky.” You say. Mireille shrugs. “It comes with the territory when you dissect tyranids. Now I’m gonna cut the cannon in half!” She jumps on top of the cannon and pulls out a buzz saw. “Are y-you sure you should be using that tool?” You ask nervously. “Relax, I know what I’m doing. For the most part.” She activates the buzz saw and drags it down the length of the cannon. Blood and goo explodes everywhere, covering her face. She grabs one of the halves with her tentacles and brings it to an observation station. “Yes.” She whispers while frantically scribbling down notes with one hand and drawing sketches with the other. She mutters things to herself in a machine tongue you still don’t understand. “Are you getting good information from the cannon?” You ask. “Oh yes. Oh yes. Oh yes.” She says rapidly. Her tone of voice is extremely excited. After twenty minutes, she gets off of her spot and shows you her notes. “Look at the notes!” She half yells at you. “Thanks. Very interesting.” You say politely. Her writing is a combination of machine speak and you think low gothic. But It's been scribbled so rapidly, you can't understand. The drawings are fairly good though. Mireille notices your confusion and looks at her notes. She processes her writing and sighs. "Sorry about that. I got really excited because you're the first person I can show my work to aside from fenror or sigurdsson. And I really like dissecting tyranids." She says with a tint of shame. "It's fine. I want to know about tyranids as well. I just can't read your handwriting." Mireille smiles. "Right, let me rewrite this so you can understand it." She erases her writing and then rewrites it and shows it to you. "Is this better?" "Yes. I can actually read it." You don't really understand what it means, but you're not going to burst her bubble. "So it...fires a ball of plasma?" You ask. "Oh yeah. A big one. We're still trying to figure out plasma weaponry. Cause I'm sure you know that plasma weaponry can be really unstable." You nod. You've seen exploded guardsmen who overcharged their plasma rifles. "And yet somehow, these insects have figured out how to fire plasma. And that's the tip of their abilities. They're able to travel faster than light without using the warp." "Really?" "Yes. They have a special bioship called a narvhal that somehow latches onto a planet's gravity field and slingshot the whole fleet to the planet."   
"And that's the...forty fifth time I've heard that little factoid." Sigurdsson says. You look up from mireille and see him standing in the doorway. He slowly starts walking toward you and mireille. "What do you want?" Mireille asks annoyedly. "I require a tyranid specimen to test something." "What kind of something?" You ask. "Weapons testing." “I don't like the sound of that.” Mireille says. “You have plenty of tyranids. Surely, you can spare one.” “Fine. But one of the rippers. Nothing else.” He walks over to the table of the dead rippers. He picks up a mostly intact one. “This’ll work well for my purposes.” He says flatly. He scuttles out of the room. “Let’s follow him. I need to see what he's actually doing." You follow her to sigurdsson's work area. You shiver. The area is chilly and smells vaguely of chemicals. You can see your breath in the air. On some of the tables are devices that glow a sickly green light. On another, you see a metal figure that looks like a human skeleton. It's been torn or cut in half. Compared to mireille's lab, this place is almost soullessly organized. A few servitors blankly watch you pass them. Sigurdsson puts the dead ripper on a pillar in the middle of the room. Mireille stops you from getting closer and mutters something in machine speech. You feel your legs become strangely heavy. Sigurdsson walks to another table and picks up what you assume to be some sort of weapon. It glows with the same sickly green light of the devices and the metal skeleton. It hums softly and sinisterly as Sigurdsson points one end of it at the ripper. The humming gets louder and louder until It's practically screaming. With a flash of brilliant green light, a beam shoots out from the weapon and strikes the pillar. It's so bright, it blocks out your vision for a few seconds. You smell ozone and scorched metal. When your vision returns, you see that the ripper and pillar have been reduced to a smoking hunk of metal. The weapon is dead now. The glow faded from it. Smoke lazily wafts out of its barrel. "Fascinating." Sigurdsson says without the slightest tinge of emotion. He gently puts the weapon back where he found it. "W-What in terra's name was that?" You stammer out nervously. Sigurdsson chuckles. "W-well,that is a necron gauss rifle. A standard necron weapon. This was a firing test. And it worked slightly better than I was expecting considering that we can't even begin to replicate their power source." You hate that he mocked your stutter. It's something that you've always had. Whenever you get nervous, you tend to stammer a little bit. You've come to terms with it, but you still hate when people mock you because of it. Mireille rolls her eye and mutters something else in machine speech. Your legs feel normal again. "Just glad you didn't blow another hole in the station like last time." "You're still held up on that?" "It took months for it to be repaired!" Mireille says angrily. "Yes. I lost quite a bit of research in that incident." "Isn't it heresy to use xenos technology?" You ask. Sigurdsson scoffs. "Maybe. But I see learning about it as a means to an end. The better we understand it, the better we can fight the necron." Mireille suddenly grins and looks at you for half a second before turning back to face Sigurdsson's back. "So I guess you could say, it was for 'the greater good?'" Sigurdsson pivots 180 degrees at the waist to face her. He's shaking with rage. "Get. Out." He says angrily. "GET OUT! OUT OF MY WORKSHOP! NOW! GET. THE FUCK! OUT!" He screams in fury. Mireille grabs you by the hand and rushes out of his workshop. When you’re back in mireille’s work area, she bursts out into laughter. “Oh, machine god. That was funny as hell.” “I didn’t get it.” Mireille straightens up. “You have no idea about the tau, do you?” “N-no.” You say. “Well, the tau are a race of aliens that are all obsessed with fighting for the ‘greater good.’ Except they have a horrible caste system.” “So why did it piss him off so much?” “A lot of people who know about them really hate them. I think it’s because they think they're the good guys. So a ton of people absolutely despise them. And Sigurdsson is one of them. So talking about the tau is one of the ways to push his metaphorical buttons. It’s honestly hilarious.”


	13. Chapter 13

Chapter thirteen (Fenror’s POV)

You’re dreaming. The dreams are the dreams of a chemically induced sleep. Sleep of the mechanically sustained. Unnatural sleep. Your dreams are of the past. Of your father, your mother, your siblings. Memories so distant, you can’t even remember their faces. They’re all dead. Dead for three centuries. But in your dreams, you can see them. It’s one of the reasons why you love sleep. You get to see them again in your sleep. Even if it’s for a short time. It’s comforting. Except when your dreams take bad turns. Those are the dreams with the dark red, oily sky and the black lightning. Those are unpleasant. But this is a decent dream. Not amazing, but decent. Slowly but surely, the veil of sleep lifts from your consciousness. You blink awake and actually feel somewhat well rested. You’ve been asleep for four weeks. You ring up one of the servitors to deliver you a cup of recaff. A few minutes later, it walks into the room and hands you a cup. You sip it gingerly. It’s worse than you were expecting. Bitter and tastes of chemicals. At least it’s hot. As bad as this recaff is, cold recaff is an abomination you can’t stomach. You finish the cup and sigh. You slowly and painfully remove the cables that pump sleep chemicals into you from your body. After doing that, you put your cloak back on and sigh because it’ll be another 4 months before you get some sleep. You leave your sleeping quarters and feel goosebumps rising on what little skin you have left. The station’s too cold for your liking. It's probably because of sigurdsson. His lab is frigid. While walking through the corridors, you see olivia. She’s wearing her jumpsuit with the addition of a dark red scarf. She’s looking at a dataslate. “Good morning Olivia.” You say. She looks up with surprise. “Oh, g-good morning sir..fenror.” She corrects herself. “How have things gone while I was asleep?” You ask. “Well, we had a shipment of tyranid corpses about two weeks ago. M-mireille and I have been dissecting them and studying them. I’ve learned a lot about biomorphs in particular.” "That's good to hear. Anything else?" "Well, Mireille's having me observe subject G-45's behavior since she hasn't done that since before the station was used as a hospital. And if he needs to be fed, I'm to instruct the servitors to feed him." "I'll let you get to that. I wish to speak to mireille.” Olivia nods and walks off. 

You enter Mireille’s laboratory. There’s tyranid corpses strewn all over on operating tables. “Good morning Mireille.” You say. “Good morning Fenror.” She says while looking at a dataslate. “How have things gone recently?” “Nothing out of the ordinary sir. We’ve dissected tyranids, ignored sigurdsson, and that’s it.” She says calmly. “How has Olivia been? Has her work been satisfactory?” “I’d say so. She’s gotten used to the work she’s supposed to do rapidly and enthusiastically. She occasionally gets nervous when dealing with sigurdsson or subject G-45, but other than that, I see no reason for her to be removed from the station.” “That’s good to hear. For the most part, I trust your judgement.” She looks at you with incredulity. “What do you mean ‘for the most part’?” She asks. “I still don’t think it’s a particularly smart idea to keep a tyranid as a pet.” “G-45 isn’t a pet! He's a test subject." She says with outrage. "A test subject that we give food, water, habitat and toys. And don't do any experiments on it. Pretty sure that's the definition of a pet." Mireille sighs. "Alright, fine. He's essentially the station's pet. But what else were we going to do with the giant pit?" You put your hand to your chin. "And besides, it pisses off sigurdsson. Which is ALWAYS a plus in my book." She says cheekily. You aren't going to admit it, but pissing off Sigurdsson is a plus in your book as well. “Alright. If anyone from the inquisition asks, the cover story will be that we’re keeping it alive to see how tyranids react in a non-synapse, non combat situation.” Mirielle makes a noise of approval and looks back to her dataslate. “So any useful data collected about the tyranids?” “Dissected a few biomorphs, sketched them, preserved the exocrine’s cannon in resin after cutting it in half. Put it in my office as well as a tyranid head preserved in resin as well. I’m using it as a paperweight.” “That’s not the weirdest thing you’ve ever done with tyranid body parts.” Mirielle scoffs in fake outrage. “Hey, that soup was fucking delicious! You said so yourself.”


	14. Chapter 14

Chapter fourteen: (Mireille’s POV)   
You walk up to Olivia. She’s at the edge of the pit with her dataslate. “Any good info?” You ask. She flinches. “Oh lord. You sp-spooked me.” “Sorry. How’s G-45 doing?” Olivia shrugs. “Well right now he’s looking at me. But he hasn’t tried to attack me. He’s just been looking at me for five minutes at this point.” You look down at G-45. He’s sitting on his haunches and looking up at Olivia while cocking his head. "What's he doing?" Olivia asks. “I think he’s..looking at us. For no reason. He does this occasionally.” G-45 suddenly looks over to a tire in his enclosure and jumps on it. He bites it and stabs it with his claws. “Guess he got bored staring at me.” Olivia says. “Or he’s venting his anger because he can’t rip us to shreds.” You say. “He’s also spent a large amount of time in his pool today.” She hands you her dataslate. “Yep. Yep. Looks normal to me. Eating, sleeping, swimming in his pool, ‘playing’ with his toys, defecating in the corner. Sounds pretty normal to me. So he’s a healthy, somewhat bored tyranid.” “Should we get him more toys?” “Probably. He goes through them pretty quickly. I think we’ll need to get the stuff that they make for cyber-mastiffs to play with.  
"Why do you insist on treating that..thing like It's a pet?" Sigurdsson says. He scuttles close to you and the force field. " "What do you want?" Olivia asks annoyedly. "I wanted to know if you know where Fenror is. I heard he has awoken and I wish to give him my report on progress. But unfortunately, I am having difficulty locating him." "Last time I saw him was in my laboratory. If he's not in his office or laboratory, check the library." "I have. So, you're almost as useless to me as the thing in the pit." You roll your eye and fight the urge to punch him. "If I remember correctly, the reason you hate G-45 is because you're afraid of him." Sigurdsson scoffs. "Why would I be afraid of that thi.." He's interrupted by G-45 leaping up and slashing at the force field. He makes a startled squeak and stumbles backwards, trying to regain balance. He fails and pitches over backwards. There's a loud clang as his head impacts the floor. He rapidly pulls himself up and curses in binary. "Not afraid? I'm pretty sure that if you still had a digestive system, you would've lost control of your bowels just now." You say smugly. "Go fuck a toaster. Or that damned thing down there. I have work to attend to." He angrily scuttles off. Once he's out of earshot, Olivia starts giggling. You chuckle as well. "Oh feth, that could not have been better timing. G-45 is going to be getting extra meat this week." 

Later, you and Olivia are going over the data she recorded in her dataslate in greater detail. As you expected, G-45’s behavior is completely normal for a tyranid that’s been separated from the hivemind and put into a pit on a space station. He’s gone through an immense amount of toys. “Yeah, we’re definitely going to need to get the stuff that they let cyber-mastiffs play with.” Olivia shudders. “What?” You ask. “S-sorry. I grew up on a planet where the arbites were a bit..overzealous with the use of their cyber-mastiffs. Even though it was a mostly peaceful world. The biggest trades were agriculture, fishing, hunting, and wood carving. One time I saw a guy getting ripped open by a cyber mastiff. Which was really traumatizing to see as an 8 year old walking home from school.” You make a horrified noise. "I have a story similar to that. I saw a man get dragged into a lathe when I was about 10. My parents let me stay at home for a few days after that." "Oh you have parents? I was raised by my grandfather until he died of a fever." Olivia says. "Sorry to hear that." You say sympathetically. Olivia sighs. "It was his time. He was very old and it wasn't painful. He just got sick, went to sleep and faded away." "That's a good way to go." Olivia nods. "After he died, I joined the guard. Because there was nothing that really appealed to me back home. All there was in terms of work was agricultural laborer, hunting/fishing, or wood carving. I figured that the guard would let me see something interesting or have an adventure. And I guess I now live on a space station studying xenos for the rest of my life. What about you?" "I grew up on a forge world. Forge world abraxas. My parents actually went slightly off the normal route to have children for tech priests. My mother kept her uterus and womb intact so she could have me. They're pretty good parents. I got a good education, was treated well, and gradually had my augmentations installed over the years. So I had a pretty good childhood.” “So are your parents still alive?” Olivia asks. “Oh yeah. They’re still on abraxos. They’re in charge of a factory that produces flak armor and laz guns for the astra militarum. So there’s a (admittedly very small) chance you were outfitted with the stuff my parents helped produce.” “That I nearly died in.” She says half-sarcastically. “Look, it’s meant to be quickly and cheaply produced. A little extra protection has to be cut in order to meet quotas.”


	15. Chapter 15

Chapter fifteen (Olivia's POV) 

A few weeks later, you and everyone else is in the cargo bay receiving a new shipment of xenos corpses. “So what’s the species of xenos we’re working on this time?” Mireille asks. Fenror looks at his dataslate that he’s holding. “They’re members of a relatively newly discovered xenos species called the skaven. They’re apparently a species of large humanoid rats.” Sigurdsson groans. “Just when I thought that the species we study couldn’t be any more glamorous. First insects and now rats! What’s next, a sentient species of slime mold?” Mireille smacks him in the leg. “Look, just because a species isn’t necron, doesn't mean it’s not important to learn about them.” The servitors lower the crates and fenror walks over to one. He uses his staff to open the crate. He makes a surprised/disgusted noise. “Fascinating.” He mutters. Mireille looks into it. “And fucking disgusting.” You look in and try not to groan. Inside the crate is this horrible rat person. They’re covered in a filthy looking greyish brown fur, have a long hairless tail, beady red eyes, and a mouth full of needle sharp teeth. A brownish yellow slime oozes from its mouth. It has several tumors protruding from its back. It’s wearing tattered clothing made out of filthy fabric. It smells horrible. It smells like feces, rot and filth. “By the throne, that’s nasty.” Mireille says. “Wh-where did they even find these things?” Fenror shrugs. “They have a few small empires consisting on a few planets across various systems. This group came from a swampish planet named Turris VI. They had infested the sewers underneath one of the settlements and had to be purged by the planetary defense force with assistance from the catachan jungle fighters. They killed the skaven and captured several of their cultural fetishes, weapons, and other technologies. Mireille and Olivia, you’ll be dissecting the bodies of the skaven. Sigurdsson will be examining their technology, and I will try to understand the complexities of their culture and their language. If we know what scares them, any forces fighting them might be able to exploit that weakness.”

Later, you and Mirielle are about to dissect your first skaven. It’s even grosser on the operating table when his clothes are removed. Mireille coughs slightly. “I’m going to need to take a shower in disinfectant after working on this thing.” “I can concur.” Mirielle puts a scalpel to the chest of the skaven chest. A greenish red goo oozes out of the wound and onto mireille’s hands. She closes her eyes and groans. “Omnissiah please give me strength.” She mutters to herself. She pulls open his chest flaps and pins them to the operating table. “Right, it seems to have an internal organ structure similar to a human. Basic mammalian organ structure. It’s just really...fucking nasty.” You write down the data on your dataslate. “I’m going to open up the stomach and see what they eat.” She drags the scalpel across the stomach and it makes a faint hissing noise. She reaches in and pulls out a lump of something half digested. The smell suddenly gets even worse. You fight your urge to vomit. “Sensors indicate that this..lump is a combination of human flesh, skaven flesh and assorted plant material.” “S-so they’re cannibals?” You ask with a combination of interest and disgust. “Cannibalism is common among normal rats, so I guess it makes sense the skaven would do it as well. So they appear to be omnivorous, but meat makes up most of their diet. Hold on, there’s something non organic in his esophagus. Let me remove it. She reaches in and pulls out a hunk of something metal. “Interesting it looks to be some sort of..necklace?” She shows it to you. It’s a hunk of silverish metal depicting a horned rat skull on a chain. The eyes of the rat have rubies embedded into them. “Looks like he swallowed this in his last moments to keep whoever was attacking him from getting it. So it probably meant a lot to him. He probably choked to death on it. It probably has some cultural significance to the skaven. We’ll give it to fenror when we’re done dissecting a few more skaven. Now for the kidneys.” She opens one of the kidneys and pulls out several large kidney stones. “About what I expected for a skaven. Every time I think they can’t get grosser, they get grosser.” 

(Sigurdsson’s POV)  
You hate to admit it, but you’re somewhat impressed by the skaven's technology. It's obviously primitive, but not nearly as primitive as you were expecting. The weapons are better made than ork weaponry. Most are either semi automatic or fully automatic. They've developed gas masks and primitive environmental protection systems. A few of the weapons have energy components, meaning that these rats have created energy weapons. The few bits of machinery that you have to examine seem to be fueled by gasoline and very weak warp magic. You pick up one of the skaven's pistols. It's light and feels gross in your hands. You aim it at one of the ripper specimens that you stole from mireille. You pull the trigger and 4 slugs pop out. They embed themselves in the ripper and start dissolving its flesh. "Acid coated bullets. Interesting." An analysis of the acid shows that It's mixed with some sort of toxin. "So not only does it dissolve, it poisons." You chuckle. "If they weren't xenos, I might like the weapon's maker." You don't hate all xenos, you remind yourself. You then pick up one of their whips. It’s 10 feet long and made out of braided fibers. It has several barbs near the tip made of metal. They’re coated in the same poison/acid that the bullets were coated in. You crack the whip and tiny droplets of the poison leap out of the barbs. You put the whip down and examine another one of their surprisingly intricate weapons. It’s some sort of hand cranked gatling gun with energy components. You’re thoroughly impressed with the skaven. You pick it up and aim it at what remains of the ripper's carcass. You crank the mechanism that spins the barrels and pull the trigger. Suddenly, the gun fucking explodes. Shrapnel tears your robes, scratches your limbs and one piece imbeds itself in one of your eyes. The force of the explosion knocks you back into the table of weaponry. They fall to the floor with a clang and the pistol fires 10 shots wildly before it runs out of ammunition. "FUCK!" You yell in machine speech. You grab the remains of the gatling gun and use your visual sensors to make a thorough examination. On closer examination, you see that the gatling gun was shoddily made. Extremely shoddily constructed. It was probably only a matter of time before the thing self-destructed. You just happened to be the unlucky bastard who was on the receiving end of the explosion. You grab the pistol and cut it in half lengthwise. It's also shoddily constructed. Your sensors determine that it has a 5 percent chance of catastrophic failure with every shot. These weapons were made cheaply and quickly. "Fucking primitives." You snarl out while standing back up. "And to think I was actually impressed by these things. They're fucking rats you idiot. Why would anything they make have any quality?" You crush the remains of the pistol with one of your clamps. "Okay. Note to self, have the servitors perform the test firing." You look at the remaining weapons on the floor. There's what appears to be a crude flamethrower and a gun that is connected to a large glass tube filled with a sickly green liquid. You sigh in annoyance because your work isn't done.

(Fenror's POV)  
As disgusting and primitive that the skaven are, their society is surprisingly complicated. Their language is composed of thousands of pictographs. You have a very crude grasp of it, but you've learned several interesting things. First and foremost is how selfish skaven culture is. They're constantly trying to backstab each other. Both figuratively and literally. Every skaven believes that if all was right in the universe, the skaven would reign supreme and he would be the top skaven. They're constantly building and destroying alliances with each other. The other big thing you've determined about them is their only deity. It's an entity called the great horned rat. Every skaven believes in this god with no hesitation or skepticism. The god has the same ethics as his people. Love, mercy and kindness are a completely foriegn concept to it and his children. The reason why the skaven haven't destroyed themselves is because they breed extremely rapidly. If your translation is correct, skaven broodmothers produce 10 whelps a week. These whelps grow up to full size in 3 weeks. This massive population growth has probably led to civil war after civil war due to lack of resources. But considering how many skaven die in battle, they need the high birth rate. 

"Hey Fenror, we found something that might interest you." Mireille says. You look up from your work to see her and Olivia standing in front of your desk. "What have you found?" You ask. "We found this necklace in the esophagus of one of the skaven." She hands you a necklace made out of a silvery metal. It's a depiction of the great horned rat with ruby eyes. "Any idea what it is?" Olivia asks. "Yes. This is a depiction of the entity that they worship. Known as the great horned rat. If It's real, It's probably a minor warp entity." You put the necklace on your desk. "You found this in the esophagus of one of the skaven?" You ask. "Yes. I think that the skaven that ate it choked to death on it. I think he wanted to make sure nobody took it from him." Mireille says. "That makes sense. Skaven are an extremely selfish and petty race. It wouldn't surprise me if his thought process was to make extracting it as unpleasant as possible." 

Suddenly, Sigurdsson walks into the room. He looks terrible. His robes are torn, his body is scratched to hell, and one of his eyes has a metal shard lodged in it. "Emperor's throne, what happened to you?" You ask with genuine concern. Sigurdsson shrugs. "Just a minor accident. One of the weapons exploded when I was testing it. I’m fine.” “A-are you sure? It looks like a grenade exploded right next to you.” Olivia asks nervously. “I’m fine olivia. But thank you for your concern. (Even though you hate me almost as I hate you.)” Mirielle rolls her one biological eye. “Gee, I wonder why?” She mutters sarcastically. “Anyway, I have deduced that skaven technology is actually rather advanced. But it’s made extremely quickly and shoddily. So it’s almost as dangerous to use it then to be at the receiving end of the weaponry. Which I learned the hard way." One of his clamps falls off of him. “Piss.” He mutters.


	16. Chapter 16

Chapter 16 (Mirieille’s POV)  
Suddenly, there’s a station wide alert. “We’re receiving a live voice chat message.” Sigurdsson says. “Put it on screen.” Fenror says The giant screen on one of fenror’s walls comes to life for the first time in decades. On the screen is a live skaven. You fight the urge to gag. As bad as the skaven specimens were, the living one is worse. He's covered in matted, filthy white fur. His snout is covered with small scars. His eyes are a reddish pink color. His ears are pierced with crudely constructed earrings made out of gold and silver. He's wearing a purple shirt with obscene symbols embroidered in it. The symbols are sickly green. He's holding a hunk of..some sort of meat in his grubby paws. He smiles evilly and chuckles. "Greetings man-things." "Hello…" Fenror says with uncertainty. "I am Votch Kragscar. And you have something that I want-need." His voice is high pitched and the words come out quickly. "What are you talking about?" Sigurdsson says angrily. "A little shiny trinket-necklace. I've been chasing after it for month-months." "You m-mean this necklace?" Olivia asks nervously while showing him the necklace you removed from that one skaven. Votch's eyes widen and he starts breathing rapidly. "Yes-yes! That trinket-thing! I need it." He says excitedly. "Why?" Fenror asks bluntly. "It belonged to my brother-kin. It was stolen by another." "So it has sentimental value to your brother." You say. Votch giggles. "It did. Before I gutted him open. It belongs to me now-now!" He half yells. He takes a bite out of his meat chunk and starts chewing it. "Here's the plan-plan. My ship is two weeks out from you. When I arrive, you man-things will give it to me and I will give-give you gold in exchange for it." Pieces of meat fall out of his mouth as he talks. "No." Fenror says bluntly.

Votch's eyes narrow and he bares his teeth. "What did you say man-thing?" He demands angrily. "I said no. First off, we don't make deals with xenos. Secondly, even if we did; there's no reason why I would ever trust a skaven. You would not hold up your end of the bargain. So I'm going to be blunt Votch. FUCK. OFF." Votch hisses angrily. "You have made a grave mistake MAN-THINGS. I'm going to have that trinket-necklace. With or without your cooperation. You-you are either going to give-give it to me, or I will take-take it myself!" He screams. "I'd like to see you try." Fenror says coldly. Votch bites his meat chunk angrily. "So be it man-things. We'll strip the flesh-flesh from your bodies and suck the marrow from your bones." His gaze settles on you and Olivia. He chuckles evilly. "Maybe I'll let my crew have some fun with the females here." You instinctively put yourself in front of Olivia. "If any of your friends even think of putting a finger on my assistant, I'll castrate them with a power axe." You say angrily. "Is that a threat, woman-thing?" Votch says with a disgusting hint of mirth. "No. It's a promise vermin. If you were intelligent, you'd point your ship in the opposite direction and fly into a star." Fenror says coldly. Votch giggles. "Well, I guess I'm an idiot because I'm comi.." 

He's interrupted by fenror shattering the screen by throwing the necklace at it. He mutters dark dark curses in machine speech. "I feel….unclean after listening to him." Sigurdsson says nervously. "I c-concur." Olivia says. "No. I mean...the implication that he'll let his crew….rape you and mireille left a metaphorical bad taste in my mouth." You look at him. "Well I'm glad that the concept of rape disgusts you. You have basic morality." You say with annoyance. "Look. I won't lie. I despise you. Like...so fucking much. But..I don't want you to be killed or be raped by vermin."

"Quiet." Fenror says coldly and firmly. You've only heard him take this tone of voice once before. "We have approximately two weeks to prepare for battle. I want the servitors outfitted with weapons if at all possible. I want the defense network worked on asap as well. And I want you to sharpen axes and charge weapons. If they get on this station, you will show them no mercy. Because they deserve none. May the omnissiah protect us."


	17. Chapter 17

Chapter 17 (Olivia's POV) You don't want to say it to mireille. But you're afraid. The visual sensors have caught the first glimpse of the skaven's ships. There are 5 small sized ships and one medium ship. They look almost like ork ships. The station will be in range of their weapons in a few hours. But It's not the space battle that scares you. It's the possibility of what could happen if they board the ship. You're obsessively checking your laz rifle. Making sure It's clean, charged, etc. Just constantly inspecting it. Anything to keep your mind off the…"Olivia." You're broken from your train of thought by mireille talking to you. You look up to her from your sitting position on your bed. "W-what?" You stammer out. "You've been working on that gun for over an hour. It's ready." She says gently. "C-can I be honest w-with you?" You ask. "Yes. Of course." "I'm afraid mireille. I'm so s-scared about what's going to happen. The l-last time I was in a fight, I nearly died. A-and that was against orks. Orks don't th-threaten to rape you and me. Wh-what if they get aboard? I don't know if I'll be ab-able to fight them. I don't w-want them to hurt you." She puts a hand on your shoulder. “I know. I know. I’ll be honest. I’m afraid as well. I’ve never actually been in a fight like the one we’re going to be in. You have. You have actual combat training. So..I think we’ll be okay.” That doesn’t really reassure you. Mirielle sits next to you. “I promise I’ll protect you. As long as I’m still kicking, they won’t lay a finger on you.” You make a silent prayer that she won’t die. (Mireille’s POV) It’s started. The ships are in range of the station’s defenses. And you’re in range of their weapons. Their ships seem to be powered by gasoline, diesel and warp fuckery. They’re owned with machine guns and primitive missiles. The station’s defense grid takes out the 5 small ships before the medium sized one takes out the defense grid. All of you prepare your weapons as the skaven ship positions itself next to the station and they begin cutting their way into the station. On the camera, you see them burst into the station. There’s about 45 of them. Votch steps into the station. He’s holding a rapier and a pistol. “Right. Find-find the man things. And bring me their head-heads!” You look at Olivia. She takes a deep breath and cocks her laz-rifle. “Good luck.” You say. “Y-you too.” About 10 minutes later, about 15 skaven burst into your lab. They’re all holding guns and knives. The one in front sees you and olivia. “Well-well well, look what we have here. The boss told-told us that the two females are attractive, but it didn..” He’s interrupted by Olivia turning his head into a bright red explosion. “S-sorry. He really grossed me out. Why am I apologizing to you?” She says nervously. “Eh. He was an asshole he won’t be missed.” Says another skaven, stepping to the front of the group. “I am Zreel featherlash. Leader of this particular group of skaven. We’re here to kill you and strip this station down to the last bolt.” “You’re awfully polite for someone who’s planning on killing me.” The skaven shrugs. “I try-try to be polite. We will probably have fun with you before we kill you.” “Alright. That’s enough. We're gonna fight to the death or not?” You say angrily. The skaven pulls out his daggers. “Sounds good-good to me.” And that’s when the fight begins. It’s both brutal and disgusting. You cut skavens in half with your power axe, crush one’s skull underneath your foot, and strangle one with one of your tentacles. You get your mechanical eye ripped out and one of your arms is ripped out of your shoulder. It hangs limply and uselessly from the socket. You turn to see one of the skaven leaping at you. You grimace but it gets hit by Olivia holding your power axe. She smacks it out of the air before cutting it in half from the groin up. She looks at you and smiles nervously. “G-guess I was the one doing the castration.” She’s only got a few scratch marks, a burn wound on one of her shoulders, and an injury that looks like it’ll probably bruise on her neck. “You’re okay right?” You ask nervously. She laughs nervously. “I’m fine. Y-you're the one whose ar-arm is dangling from the socket!” She stammers out. “It can be fixed.” You breathe out. “Thank the omnissiah you’re not hurt.” Both of you smile nervously and giggle softly in relief that it’s over. (Sigurdsson’s POV) You sit in the darkness of your workshop, waiting for the vermin to burst in. You've sealed yourself in. Suddenly, you see a red flash burst through the steel. They're cutting through the door. After 3 minutes, the door crashes to the ground and a skaven holding a cutting tool and wearing some sort of welding mask steps in. He's followed by about 20 skaven. They're carrying pistols, gatling guns and one's carrying a flamethrower. They part to let a specific skaven in. It has grey fur. Its belly is distended and bloated. They're holding one of the cruel whips of the skaven. They sniff the air and scoff. "There's nothing in here. Just machines and oil. Harvest whatever you can find and take-bring it to votch." Their voice is slightly more feminine than the other skaven. One of the skaven steps forward and has his left upper quarter blown off by one of your plasma rifles. "If you were intelligent, you'd leave. Because there's not a chance in hell you're going to lay a single filthy paw on MY things!" You scuttle out of the darkness you were hiding in and walk up until you're 5 feet from the skaven. Your strategy worked somewhat. About half of them are intimidated by you. The female skaven narrows her eyes. "What's this? Are you even a man-thing?" You clench your fists. "Yes. I am a 'man thing'. I've just shed the weakness of flesh." "So you're not a man-thing. You're a metal-thing." You snarl. "I don't have the time or the desire to debate this. Especially with vermin." The female skaven bares her teeth. "How dare you. I am Xilk Boneweaver! The favored mate of Votch Kragscar! I am his second in command!" If you still could, you'd smile. She's unknowingly given you something to toy with. "So you're the bitch he likes to fuck the most. That's not that impressive." You say smugly. She tightens her grip on the whip. "And how do you know you're his favorite bitch? He could be lying to you. Scratch that, he's probably lying to you. Skaven aren't known to be the most...trustworthy of people." You top it off with a small chuckle. Xilk's eyes twitch in anger. "Kill him. I want it DEAD-DEAD!" That's when the fight begins. The skaven rush you and fire their weapons. You point one of your plasma rifles at a gatling gun and fire. The discharge of energy causes it to overload and it explodes. The explosion kills five skaven. The one holding the flamethrower points it at you and fires. You're engulfed in flame. You walk through the flames and push your hand through to grab the skaven. You grab him by the throat and lift him above your head. He squeaks in terror before you snap his neck. You throw his corpse to the floor and pierce his skull with a leg. Two skaven see the sight of a flaming man crushing their compatriot and flee in terror. The rest are almost disgustingly easy to kill. You strangle with tentacles, shoot with plasma, crush skulls with your clamps and pierce bodies with your legs. The only one left is Xilk. You turn to face her and chuckle. "Is that really the best you could do?" You ask smugly. "No." She mutters angrily. She cracks her whip and throws her head back. "XAAAAAAAALK!" She screams out in rage. "You're fucked metal-thing." She says happily. Suddenly, a gigantic rat thing bursts into the room. It's like a skaven, but much bigger. It's twelve feet tall with rippling muscles. It has no fur, instead it has scarred pink skin covered in tattoos of skaven symbols. Its eyes are blood red. It's mouth is full of metal teeth that are shaped like swords. A thick yellow drool oozes out of his mouth. He has three extremely large blades fused into the wrist on his left arm. The blades are dark brown and cruel looking. His right hand is covered by a metal gauntlet with spikes on the knuckles. His tail is 12 feet long and has metal spikes on the tip. Xilk pats him on his thigh. "Xalk, make him hurt-hurt." She says evilly. "Me and my metaphorical big mouth." You think to yourself before Xalk charges you. He swipes at you with his blades. The force of the impact sends you flying across the room. You crash into a wall hard. Sensors indicate that one of your legs is crippled and your clamps are inoperable. One of your eyes is cracked. "That's the third time in recent months that my eyes have been damaged." You mutter to yourself. Xalk grabs you and slams you into the floor. The impact dents the floor. Your sensors basically tell you that if you keep taking this kind of abuse, you’re going to die. You manage to stab his hand with a shard of metal. It digs itself deeply into his gigantic hand. To your horror, he doesn’t react to it. He picks you up and tears off your left arms and some of your tendrils before tossing you to another side of the room. You crash into a table of necron weaponry. You scrabble to your feet and grab the gauss flayer. The giant skaven grabs you by the waist and raises you to above his head. He looks to xilk. She nods her head. “Eat him.” He opens his mouth wide and you manage to shove it in his mouth. You weakly chuckle. “Eat this instead you rat bastard.” You pull the trigger and the gauss flayer fires a beam of green energy down his throat. His head, throat and part of his chest evaporate into dust. He falls to the floor and you pull yourself out of his grasp. You turn to face Xilk. She’s terrified. She tries running but you use the gauss flayer’s remaining charge to disintegrate her legs. You toss the gauss flayer aside and rip one of Xalk’s blades off of his wrist. She groans in pain. You smack her onto her back with one of your legs. “I’m going to be honest. I’m more than a little bit pissed at you.” Your vox implant has been crushed, causing your voice to be distorted and deeper than normal. “Please-please. Don’t kill me. I’m wit..” You interrupt her by slicing her throat open and carving up her abdomen. Her foul blood explodes out of her. “Fuck. You.” You say angrily. Suddenly, you notice something in her stomach moving. You kneel down to get a closer look. Suddenly, 4 pink malformed things leap out of her stomach and onto you. You reel back in surprise. They try to bite you but they can't. You grab one and throw it against the wall. It explodes in a bloom of blood and viscera. You crush two of the others and grab the final one. It’s a mostly formed skaven whelp. It’s been born prematurely and won’t survive more than an hour if it doesn’t get put on life support. “She was his favorite mate. Of course she was pregnant. Why wouldn’t she be pregnant?” You look at the fetus. It’s trying to bite your thumb. You crush it’s spine in your hand before collapsing from exhaustion. A fifth, more formed whelp crawls out and rests on his mothers corpse. They didn’t find the area. She’s safe. You’re positive she could’ve easily killed all of them. But her presence can’t ever be known by fenror, mirielle or olivia. But she’s safe. That’s all that matters. She’s safe. She’s safe. One of the skaven that fled earlier looks into the room and sees you. You’re covered in blood, scorched by a flamethrower, dented and scratched from the giant skaven and are missing your arms. But you’re still alive. Her eyes widen and she runs as fast as she can. You grab the blade and slowly start limping after her. It drags behind you. But you don’t care, you’ve got skaven to exterminate. (Fenror’s pov) Things are going well. There’s only about seventeen skaven left. You’re standing against the wall in the main entrance. Twelve skaven enter the room. The biggest one there groans. “That son of a breeder, votch lied to me. He told me that we’d be fight-killing warriors. This man-thing looks like he shatter-break if he got out of bed wrong.” The other skaven say yes-yes in agreement. “Just because I am elderly doesn’t mean I’m not capable.” The skaven laughs. “Sure thing old thing. Vargikt, bring me his skull-skull.” A skaven holding a knife runs towards you. He jumps at you and you grab him in midair before breaking his spine on your knee. You toss the paralzyed skaven at his compatriots. The head skaven whistles. “I’m impressed man thing. I wasn’t expecting you to actually put up a fight. This oughta be fun-fun.” “It wont. I’m not going to give you the satisfaction of fighting me. I am beyond angry. You’ve invaded my home, damaged priceless equipment, threatened to rape and murder my crew. And for what? A goddamn necklace. You take the necklace out of your robes and show it to them. You crush it in the palm of your hand. “I told your leader to leave us alone. And he didn’t. So I have one thing left to say.” You reveal the button that opens up the airlock. Their eyes widen and they try to escape, but you’ve locked up the exit. You smile evilly. “Get off my station.” You press the button and the skaven shoots out into space while you stand still due to maglocking your legs. You watch with grim satisfaction as their corpses tumble end over end in the cold vacuum of space. (Mirielle’s POV) (Several hours later) All four of you are tracking down Votch and his three remaining skaven. When they realized that their troops had been slaughtered, they panicked and started running. All of you aside from fenror look worse for wear. Especially sigurdsson. He looks scorched, has giant scratches and dents in his body, one of his legs is crippled, his clamps hang limply from his body and two of his arms have been ripped off. He’s dragging this gigantic blade behind him. He’s muttering the credo omnissiah over and over again in a deep distorted voice. You actually feel sorry for him. Aside from fenror, Olivia is the one who came out the best. You silently thank the omnissiah for that mercy. Eventually you find Votch and his goons cowering in front of G-45’s enclosure. Fenror stops Sigurdsson from slicing them into ribbons. “I warned you what would happen if you attacked my station. And now look where you are. Cowering. All for a useless trinket.” Fenror says grimly. He tosses the crushed necklace at Votch. He catches it and squeaks in a combination of terror and rage at the destroyed necklace. “How dare you defile-break the symbol of the great horned rat?” “Oh you mean the fucking pathetic warp spawn you’ve decided to worship?” Sigurdsson says angrily. Votch tries saying something but you and fenror kick him and the other skaven into G-45’s enclosure. After they land, Votch chuckles. “Is this supposed to be a punishment man-thing? This is nice-nice. Your weak-pathetic man thin..” He’s interrupted by G-45 walking up behind them and drooling on his shoulder. Votch turns and squeaks in horror before G-45 bites his head in half and slicing the other three skaven into shreds. He begins dragging Votch’s corpse around his enclosure in glee to have finally gotten the chance to kill something. Fenror kicks the necklace into the enclosure. “Good riddance.” He mutters angrily before walking off.


	18. Chapter 18

Chapter 18 (Olivia’s pov) 

A while later, you and mireille are in her laboratory. She’s treating your wounds with her one good hand. She daubs the scratches that you received in the fight with a cotton ball dipped in disinfectant. You wince due to the chemicals. She then injects you with antibiotics. “Just in case. We don’t know what kind of bacteria live on skaven.” You feel fine. She looks far worse that you do. Her mechanical eye got ripped out by a skaven. You can see torn wires inside of her eye socket. She applies burn cream to your shoulder and wraps it up with gauze bandages. “All in all, things could’ve gone better. But they could’ve gone way worse.” You shudder when you remember Votch’s threat towards you and mireille. Mireille puts away her medical supplies and pulls out a large metal lockbox from underneath a dissecting table. “What’re you doing?” You ask. “I didn’t take much damage to my flesh. But my augmentations took a beating. As you can see.” She grabs her dangling arm before letting it drop down. “And I want to repair it if I can and remove it if I have to. As for my eye, that’s of lesser concern at the moment. But my arm is really bugging me.” Suddenly, she takes off her robe and puts it on the dissecting table. “Wh-why did you do that?” You say with surprise. “As much as I love my cloak, I need to remove it to have easier access to my arm.” She says calmly. You realize that this is the first time you’ve ever seen her without her robe. She’s wearing a pair of grey pants and grey boots. Which you find slightly odd because her legs are mechanical. She’s not wearing a shirt however. Just a well fitted tube shaped bra. The bra is dark red and has the skull of the mechanicus flanked by wires that form wings printed on it in white. Her body has a decent amount of augmentations to it. You see that her spine is reinforced with metal. There’s also metal covering the area directly underneath her breasts and on her sides. But there’s far less augmentation than you were expecting. Her figure is curvy but also muscular. She has a well developed set of abdominal muscles. She has a tattoo of the adeptus mechanicus skull flanked by wings tattooed on her collarbone area. There’s a clunking noise as she removes her arm and you’re broken out of your examination of her body. “Thankfully, it can be repaired.” She puts the arm on the dissecting table and opens the lockbox. Inside are various tools to repair machinery. She activates one and starts repairing her arm. After about twenty minutes, she turns it off and puts it back in its case. She then picks up another instrument and starts working on her shoulder. She winces slightly while fixing her shoulder’s augmentation. After doing that, she puts her arm back in and slowly wriggles her fingers. “Alright. Everything seems fine.” “That’s g-good.” You stammer out. “Why are you stuttering?” “I wasn’t expecting you to take off your robes.” Mirielle shrugs. “I’ve seen you naked several times before so It’s fine.” She says plainly before putting her robe back on. She then puts her eyeglass back up to her face. “Quick question.” She says. “Sure?” “Do you find me attractive?” You blush and take a step back. “Wh-what made you think that?” You stammer out. “Well, you were paying particular attention to my breasts, abdominal muscles and ass.” You feel your blush get far worse. “S-sorry.” “It’s fine if you are.” You smile nervously. “Y-Yes. I do find you a-attractive.” Mirielle sighs out in relief. “Oh thank the emperor. Because that could’ve been really awkward if you said no. Because I find you attractive.” “S-So..d-does that mean we’re d-dating now?” You stammer out. “I don’t know. My last relationship lasted two months before she joined the rest of the sisters of battle.” There’s a quiet, awkward moment that lasts for 2 minutes. “I think we should take it slow for a while and see where it goes from here.” Mirielle says. “A-a-agreed.”

(Sigurdsson's POV)  
It's been a long day, and you're still stressed out. You nearly died today and need to destress. You go into your workshop and press the secret code into the secret panel on the far wall. The wall opens up and you step in. The room is dark and illuminated by the sickly green light of necron technology. The wall closes behind you and you kneel on the floor. "I see that you're looking worse for wear, my love." Says a calming mechanical voice. Her voice is completely different from the mechanical voices of other tech priests. It's more exotic and far more alien. "It's nothing. It can be repaired. It's far more important to know that you're still safe and secret from the others." She steps out of the shadows and if you still could, you'd probably start crying. She's beautiful. A far more elegant form than any tech priest. A skeletal figure made out of black metal illuminated by a sickly green light from inside her chest. She walks up to you and puts one of her hands on the side of your head. "Thank you for giving me the ability to use your technology. I would've died if I couldn't use it." She laughs. A cold, mechanical sound that's both chilling and delightful to you. "Anything for you, My love." You wrap one of your remaining arms around her and hug her tightly.


	19. Chapter 19

Chapter 19. (Olivia's POV)

About two months later, you're looking around for mireille. But you're having trouble finding her. She's not in the laboratory, her quarters or the gym. You enter the library and look for her. You don't find her. Instead you find a large metal lockbox that's sitting next to a collection of books that you realize are erotica. The lockbox is slightly open. Curiosity overwhelms you and you open the box. You're shocked by what you see. Inside the lockbox is a rather large phallus. You pick it up. It's made of rubber. It's shaped like a horse penis but has ridges running down the shaft. It's a foot in length and has a six inch diameter. It is dark blue and gray. It weighs several pounds. The base of it is wide and you feel a button on it. You press it and it starts vibrating. You look back into the box and see that there's several other phalluses of varying sizes and shapes. Suddenly, you hear someone making a surprised squeak. You turn around and see mireille standing behind you. She's holding a bottle of wine and a sandwich. You make a scared noise in the back of your throat. There’s a moment of awkward silence for a few seconds before mireille clears her throat. “Well..I see you’ve found part of my collection.” “Th-there’s more of them?” You stammer out. “Yeah. I’ve got ten of them. Those are just my favorites.” She mutters something in machine speech. “There’s no way to make it not awkward.” She says. “N-no. There r-really isn’t.” Mirielle opens her bottle of wine and slings back a swig. “How about we talk about this back in the laboratory.” 

You meet her back in the laboratory. She’s set up a table with the lockbox, some sandwiches, the bottle of wine and two glasses. “So...where d-did you get the dildo?” You stammer out nervously. “I made it. I knew that Fenror would not let me order dildos. And Sigurdsson would definitely try to use it against me. So I bought some rubber and casted them myself. After casting them, I hollowed them out and put a simple motor inside and then sealed them up with more rubber. The motor causes the dildo to vibrate when It's activated." You pick up the largest one. "So what's with the r-ridges and n-nubs on it?" "Those are there to hit the sweet spots inside of me. All of them are specifically designed to give me as much pleasure as possible." "Oh.." You say softly. "What? Were you planning on using one of them later?" If your blush could get any more intense, the station would be on fire. "Ahh..I m-mean, maybe. If-if you would l-let me use one." Suddenly, mireille's expression goes from embarrassed to smug and playful. "You know, I could make one for you." Her voice is deep and teasing. The thought of having one of these dildos inside of you vibrating makes you begin to feel wet. "Y-yes?" Mireille walks over to another dissection table and rummages under it until she finds a small black device. "You'll need this." She says while giving it to you. "W-what is it?" You ask. "It's an internal measurement tool. It'll scan your insides and give me the dimensions I'll need to make the perfect shaped dildo for you." "So does that mean that I'll need to.." "Yes. You'll need to stick it in your vagina. You'll only need to leave it in there for ten minutes. Once It's done taking measurements, just give it back to me and I'll get to work on making your dildo. It'll take a couple hours for the rubber to set and then I'll leave you to have fun with it." "Um..instead of leaving me alone with it, would you m-mind seeing if it works with me?" Mireille's smile widens. "It'll be my pleasure."


	20. Chapter 20

Chapter twenty (Olivia's POV)  
A few hours later, Mireille walks up to you. She's holding a black fabric bag that has something heavy in it. "Got something for you." She says with a sing-song voice. "C-can I see it?" She takes it out of the bag. She puts it on the table. It's eight inches long and about half as thick. It looks like a horse penis but with nubs and ridges on it. It's dark purple with white accents. "W-wow." You murmur in amazement. "You want to see how well it works?" She asks with obvious arousal. "God yes." She grabs your ass. "Well let's take this somewhere far more private." She leads you to her sleeping quarters. It's not that much nicer than yours. The bed's bigger than yours though. Mireille grabs you by the wrist and looks you directly in the eyes. "Strip. Now." She says firmly. You step back and take off your clothing quickly. You shiver, knowing that this is the first time she’s looked at you naked with sexual intentions. “H-how do I look?” She breathes in through her teeth. “You’re gorgeous.” She says. That reassures you so much. You’ve always had a pretty slim figure, with small breasts and small buttocks. “C-can I see you?” You ask. Mireille smiles. “Of course.” She takes off her robe before stripping her pants, bra and underwear. Her body is glorious to look at. It’s curvy and sexy to look at. Her breasts are decently large and capped with pale pink nipples. Her breasts and shoulders have a sprinkling of freckles. “Wow.” You mutter. Mireille chuckles. “Real smooth casanova.” She says playfully. “L-look. I’ve never d-done anything like this before.” She chuckles. “Let me take care of you.” You sit on her bed and chuckle nervously as she walks up next to you. She gently pushes onto your back and takes the dildo out of the bag as well as a small purple jar. She opens it and pours the contents onto it. It's filled with clear, oily liquid. "Lubricant." She says bluntly. She rubs the lube up and down the length of the dildo before placing it in front of your vagina. "Are you ready?" She asks reassuringly. You nod your head. She gently pushes it inside of you. You grit your teeth to muffle the moan that wants to come out of your mouth. She pauses for a second before pushing the shaft fully inside of you. Once It's fully inside, she kisses you on the cheek. Her lips are soft and warm. "Good girl." She whispers to you. She reaches down and presses the switch on the dildo. It hums into life and you clench your legs from the pleasure. It rapidly hits sweet spots you didn't even know that you had. "You don't need to hold your voice back. I want to hear it." Mireille says with that dammendly sexy voice. She grabs the base of the dildo and pulls it out slightly. You feel your insides trying to hold onto it. Suddenly, she pushes it back in. You feel its nubs and ridges brush against your sweet spots. You moan softly. "That's it. That's what I wanted to hear." You feel the chill of her tentacles as they wrap themselves around your body and squeeze your breasts and ass. You shiver from the cold and the sensation in between your legs. She pulls and pushes the dildo slightly faster now. The vibrations are exquisite. She chuckles happily and her free hand works down to your vagina. She almost absentmindedly massages your clitoris. You moan loudly as her tentacles wrap around your arms and legs and pin you down. "I-I'm going to cum!" You moan out. "Cum for me." She says before pushing the dildo into you as far as she can. You feel your muscles spasm as your vision goes white as you orgasm. Pure pleasure runs rampant through your body. When you recover, the dildo is off and Mireille has let your body go. You pant heavily. Mireille kisses you on the forehead. "So how effective was it?" "V-very." You say. She smirks happily. "That's what I was hoping to hear." She pulls the dildo out of you. You groan as it rubs against your still very sensitive sweet spots. She looks at the dildo up and down before putting it down. She then licks her fingers seductively. You then put your hands on her shoulders. She flinches. "What are you doing?" She asks. You smirk. "It's not fair if I'm the only one who gets to experience that kind of pleasure." You manoeuvre so that you're on top of her. She's blushing furiously. "I mean...go ahead and do whatever you want to do." She says. The first thing you do is kiss her on her lips. Her one biological eye widens. Her lips are just as soft as before. You stick your tongue inside her mouth. She obliges by having her tongue twirl around yours. You gently cup one of her breasts and rub her nipple with your remaining organic hand. She's warm and you can feel her heart beating rapidly in her chest with your other hand. She deepens the kiss and there's the sound of wet smacking noises. When you pull back, there's a strand of saliva connecting your mouths. She breathes rapidly. "Really enjoyed that, didn't you?" You ask smugly. She nods her head. You smirk and lean closer to her. "You like to be on the bottom don't you?" She makes a quiet muttering noise. "What was that? I couldn't hear you. Speak up please." She smiles embarrassedly. "I enjoy it either way. But I really like being spoiled by a strong woman." "Like me?" You ask coyly, moving your fingers down her stomach. "Yes." She says quietly. You get off of her and the bed and motion her to sit at the edge of the bed. You kneel down and get a good look at her vagina. "It's just a vagina, It's nothing special." She says. She's wrong in that regard. It's a brilliant pink color with healthy labia and a well sized clitoris. Above it is a strip of well manicured blonde hair. It looks surprisingly soft. You scoot in and gently blow on her vagina. Her hips buck forward. You chuckle softly. “Eager, aren’t you?” “Olivia..please.” She pleads. You love the way she said that. You run your tongue over her vagina. She whimpers softly. She tastes slightly metallic. Guess it fits with the whole tech priestess thing. You gently lick her a few more times before diving in and sticking your tongue inside of her. She clamps her legs behind your head and forces you in further. You aren’t complaining. You twist and thrash your tongue inside of her. She sits up and runs her hands through your hair. “Oh omnissiah, r-right there. Oh…” She clenches up and hisses something in binary as she orgasms. You drink some of her fluids. You let go of her and she leans up. You look up at her. “H-how was that?” You ask. “Amazing.” Her crazy smile comes back. But we’re not done here.” She picks you up with her tentacles and lays you on the bed. She reaches into an end table and pulls out another dildo. “Didn’t w-we already d-do that?” You ask. She smirks. “This is something similar. But both of us get to enjoy it. Have you ever heard of a strap on?” She’s become the dominant one again. She fastens the dildo into a harness around her waist and fastens it where it would grow out of if she was a man. “This’ll allow both of us to feel pleasure at the same time. And I’M going to be on top this time.” She says excitedly. She positions herself in front of your opening before pushing inside of you. Both of you moan. She pushes until she’s fully inside you. She pauses and kisses you before wrapping you up with her tendrils. "How hard do you want me to fuck you?" She asks. "Slow at f-first. But gradually speeding up." Mireille chuckles and you feel her tendrils tightening around you. "As you wish." She pulls back before thrusting inside of you. You moan in pleasure. She also moans softly. Her tendrils wrap around your breasts and your ass. You feel one probing at the entrance of your ass. Suddenly, it pushes itself inside of you. You gasp at the sudden sensation. It's smooth and cold. It slowly starts heating up and vibrating. "You like that? It's the first time I've used them on another person." Mireille says. The tendrils around your breasts start gently flicking your nipples. "They're wired in such a way that I can feel sensations through them. So in cases like this, It's like I've got a dick in your ass." "It feels amazing." You groan from the feeling. "You too. You're so fucking tight." She repositions you so that you're riding on top of her. She begins thrusting faster while you move yourself down on it. "Oh god." You mutter. Mireille groans as well and grabs your legs. She thrusts violently upwards. You feel her cock ram inside of you while her tendril vibrates violently. After a few minutes, she loses her rhythm and just starts rapidly pumping into you. You feel your release approaching rapidly as well. She moans something in machine speak as she thrusts one final time and you orgasm as well. She falls on her back and you collapse on top of her. “H-holy fuck.” You say. “That was..the best sexual experience I’ve had in a long time.” Mirielle pulls herself out, causing both of you to groan. She lies down next to you. “God. I need a shower.” She turns to face you. “Care to join me?” She asks playfully. “As long as we don’t have sex. I’m already worn out.” She kisses your forehead. “As you wish.”

“So..wh-what are we?” You ask a while later in bed. “What?” Mireille mutters, more asleep than awake. “What are we? Bec-cause it doesn’t really feel like we’re dating.”Mireille sits up. “I don’t think we are. I think we’re more or less just fuck buddies outside of work. Is that okay with you?” “I guess. I mean, I-I’m not sure i’m ready for an actual relationship yet.” You say.


	21. Chapter 21

Chapter 21: (Mirielle’s POV)

A few days later, you and Olivia are going to sigurdsson’s workshop. You need to borrow an electrical saw. “Hey sigurdsson, we need..” Olivia’s interrupted by a large pink thing screeching at her. She stumbles backwards in fear. The pink thing is about the size of a large cat. It’s perched on a table full of tools. “Down vetch.” Sigurdsson says before beckoning it with a click. The pink thing skitters down before climbing up onto his shoulder. He feeds it a lump of organic material. On closer inspection, you see that it’s a malformed skaven with augmentations. “What the hell is that?” You ask angrily. “This is vetch. He’s one of the fetuses that tried to attack me when I carved that she bitch xilk up. I modified him with some spare parts to turn him into my new personal favorite servitor.” He says happily while petting vetch’s chin. “Y-you turned a skaven into a servitor?” Olivia asks in disgust. “Yes.” Sigurdsson says, handing vetch a small biscuit. Vetch eats it happily and noisily. “Using xenos as servitors is major tech heresy. We both know this.” Sigurdsson scoffs. “It’s a skaven. They’re a minor enough species that the inquisition won’t care. Unlike that one idiot who used orkz as servitors.” “Not so minor that the rat ogre didn’t nearly kill you.” You say. “That was my own damn fault. Xilk used it because I pissed her off. If I wasn’t focused on her, It wouldn’t have posed a threat.” He says while tinkering with some piece of xenos technology. “My goodness Olivia. Did you hear that? He actually somewhat admitted that he did something wrong. What’s next, you actually treat us like coworkers and not like scum?” You say sarcastically. “Shut up. I’m busy.” “Wh-what are you working on?” Olivia asks. “I’m w-working on a necron teleportation node.” You want to punch him for making fun of her stutter. “A what?” Olivia asks. “A teleportation node. The bodies of necrons can normally heal themselves from most injuries. But if they sustain critical damage, the teleportation node teleports them back to a facility to be repaired. This teleportation looks awfully similar to a necron self destructing.” “So it could still be alive but whoever was firing on it would never actually know?” Olivia asks. “Yes. People who survive necron wars tend to become extremely paranoid people due to..” There’s a loud CRACK from the node. “Oh no.” He says with genuine fear. Bright green light bursts out from the node and whites out your vision. You cover Olivia with your body as it explodes, knocking both of you backwards. When your vision clears, sigurdsson is gone. All that’s left is a scorched greenish black stain on the floor that vetch is sniffing at nervously. He looks at you and starts whimpering. “Oh my god.” You say. “Is...is he d-dead? Did he just die?” She asks nervously. Vetch starts doing the skaven servitor equivalent of crying. “I don’t know! I-I don’t know. He might not be dead. Maybe he just got teleported.” “So he’s in a necron facility?” You have a horrifying mental image of Sigurdsson being disintegrated by necron destroyers. You don’t like him at all, that’s common knowledge, but you don’t want him to die. Votch climbs up your leg and perches on your shoulder. You fight the urge to throw him off of you. He looks at the spot where Sigurdsson was before he starts nibbling on your robe to comfort himself you guess. You sigh. “We need to talk to fenror about this.”

(Fenror’s POV)

The past few months have been surprisingly decent. After the skaven attack, you were able to get a rather nice deal on repairs for the station from a group of tech priests. They improved the defense system, upgraded any broken equipment and added a pool for the gym area. You just had to pay them with a lot of toasters for some reason. They really insisted on toasters. Like a hundred toasters. They even threw a shuttle with both space and atmosphere capability for some reason. You're at your desk studying the last bits of skaven symbols that you haven't decoded. You're calm. Very calm. And tired. More than normal. You lean back in your chair and let your eyes gently shut. You feel yourself drifting into sleep without chemical inducements for the first time in centuries. Suddenly, the door to your office bursts open, jolting you fully awake. Mireille, Olivia and some pink malformed thing perched on mireille's shoulder come in. "Fenror, we have a MAJOR problem!" Mireille says forcefully. "What is it? Where's sigurdsson?" You demand. "This is actually about him. He might be dead." Mireille says while shrugging. "What do you mean 'might be dead'?" You ask in confusion. "H-he was working on a necron teleportation n-node and something in it cracked and he w-was enveloped in green light. When our vision r-returned, he was gone." Olivia says nervously. "So he's either dead or he's teleported somewhere." Mireille says. You suck in a breath through your teeth. "If he's teleported to a necron facility, he's probably dead by now." You say grimly. "But is there a chance t-that he would've t-teleported somewhere else? I mean, it looked slightly dented before it went off. Maybe he teleported somewhere else?" You have the unpleasant mental image of Sigurdsson slowly drifting through the vacuum of space forever until he runs into a star or something. "Well, all of us have GPS trackers implemented inside of us. It has a range of 1000 light years. So...if he hasn't teleported inside a star or isn't on the other side of the galaxy, we should be able to find him." You stand up. "Follow me." You lead them to your workshop. You turn on a computer and enter sigurdsson into it. After calculating his position, his position blinks onto the screen. There's a collective sigh of relief. He's not in a tomb world or in the middle of a star. He's on a planet that's relatively close to the station. Examination of the planet's stats reveals that it has an habitable environment and calm climate. "Let's see…the name of the planet is draya. It has a mild climate and temperatures, multiple environments spread across 6 major continents, relatively small human populations. About 390 million people in total." You mutter. "That's very small compared to most planets in the imperium. How advanced is this planet?" Mireille asks. "It isn't. It's a feudal planet. The most advanced piece of technology that the average person would see would be a wind or water mill. The concept of bacteria and viruses would be completely unknown to them." "So Sigurdsson would stand out l-like a sore thumb." Olivia says. "Yes. If anyone would see him, they'd almost certainly view him as either a monster or a demon." "And even if they didn't, he'd probably not endear himself to the populace." Mireille says. "So we have to 'rescue' him before he either is burnt as a witch or causes a war crime or something like that." Olivia says. "Well.. It's a two and a half month voyage from here to there with the shuttle." "Does it not have warp capabilities?" Mireille asks. "No. Guess I didn't give the other tech priests enough toasters for that." You turn off the computer and turn to face them. "Alright, since we're the closest ones to him and since we're probably the only ones who care that he's there, I'll need you two to go to draya and pick him up. I can't go because someone needs to watch the station and you can blend in with their society far easier than I could." Mireille puts a hand to her chin. "That's true. If I put a wrap over my eye and wear baggy clothing, I could pass as a normal human. And Olivia is barely augmented." Mireille says calmly. You sigh. "Right. Pack your things. You'll be leaving tomorrow as early as possible."


	22. Chapter 22

Chapter 22 (Olivia's POV)

It's been two and a half months, but you're finally at draya. You're glad. You've gotten a bit stir crazy in this shuttle. Though the isolation with Mireille as your sole companion has been nice. The two of you have fucked pretty much every single night. You've gotten very acquainted with Mireille's sweet spots. But even that can only keep the cabin fever at bay. Draya looks nice from space. It’s a planet with six major continents and pristine blue oceans. It reminds you of what your home planet looked like from space. You can see clouds covering some parts of the continents. “Right. Sigurdsson’s on the medium sized continent. Right in the middle of it. He hasn’t moved much in the past couple weeks, so he’ll probably be easy to find. She lands the ship in a valley next to a pond. “Right. Last stop. Everyone off the ship.” She says sarcastically. You step off the ship and take a deep breath. It’s nice to be on a place with actual gravity and a non recycled atmosphere. The air is fresh and smells of mist and earth. The temperature is about 50 degrees and misty. "This is nice. It reminds me of home." You say. Mireille shrugs and wraps a bandana around her mechanical eye. Both of you are wearing clothing that won't draw any attention. It's simple but comfortable. "It's weird." She says uncomfortably. "What do you mean?" You ask. She sighs. "It's been decades since I've been on a planet. So I'm getting used to not being in space." 

You walk for a while until you find a road. And then the two of you walk down the road. After about twenty minutes, you come across a farmer. He's tending to his crops. "Morning!" You say pleasantly. He looks up from his crops and waves. "Good morning ma'am. It's a glorious day that the lord has granted us." He says, gesturing around the field. "How's the crops going?" Mireille asks, somewhat unsure about it. "Oh, It's been a very good couple months for me. Assuming that we don't have an early frost, I'll have a good harvest." He says happily. He's about five feet tall with cracked pale skin. He's probably in his late 40s, but looks to be in his 60s due to a life of hard work. His smile fades slightly. "But I can't say the same thing for my neighbor Ralph." He says darkly. "What's wrong with him?" You ask. He shakes his head. "Oh no no. That's not something ladies like you should hear about." "I'm pretty sure I can handle it. I've seen plenty of bad things." Mireille says. He sees her one eye and shrugs. "I guess you're right about that." He says before adjusting his hat. He leans in closer to you. "It was probably about three months ago. It was just a week after we planted the crops. Ralph was showin me his new cow. And it was a fine animal. Best cow ralph ever raised. He was plannin on bringing her to the fair lata this year. But suddenly, this horrible green light started comin outta the cow. And da cow starts screamin something awful. Blood started comin out of her mouth and she fell over dead. And then.." He stops and shakes his head. "I can't tell you ladies what happened. It's too terrible for you to hear." "No, go on. I'm intrigued." Mireille says. "All right. But don't tell me I didn't warn you if you faint or something. The cow's stomach was filled with something and then this horrible roaring noise came from her stomach. And then this..thing cut open her belly from the inside and stepped out. It was awful. And then this metal demon crawled out of her belly. Me and Ralph ran away as fast as we could. And then the demon crushed some of Ralph's crops. And ralph's not tended to his crops in that field since. He refuses to work in that field. And that's his biggest field." He says with a tinge of genuine fear in his voice. "I ain't gonna tell you any more about that thing. I don't wanna think about that creature at all." Mireille smiles and nods her head. "That's fine. But thanks for telling us." The two of you walk away. Once you're out of earshot, Mireille starts talking. "So Sigurdsson made himself popular with the locals." She says sarcastically. "At least it probably won't be hard to find him."

The next couple of hours are spent talking to the locals and asking if they know anything about the 'metal demon'. Most of them know only the basic details about the incident at the farm. But some of them add new details to it. Through word of mouth, he has grown to twelve feet tall and breathes green lightning from his mouth. The only actually new information you've learned is that soldiers that work for the local lord have been sent to either slay or capture the demon. And apparently, 15 of them have been found dead. You've also encountered a lot of weird misogyny. Most of the men that the two of you have talked to have either politely refused to tell you the 'gruesome' details or talked down to the both of you. You guess it makes sense considering that this is an extremely backwater planet. 

At this point, night is falling and Mireille decides to go to the local tavern to both look for information and get a drink. The two of you enter the tavern. It's very rustic. Wooden tables and furniture, lanterns with candles inside of them, general unwashed body odor. Mireille sits the two of you at a table and orders a tankard of beer. About 5 minutes later, a woman with red hair gives it to Mireille. The woman eyes both of you with suspicion and vague disgust. Mireille takes a sip of the beer before gently putting it back down on the table. "How bad is it?" You ask. She purses her lips. "You know when you cut open a tyranid and some of its blood gets into your mouth and it tastes like liquid death?" She says calmly. "Yeah?" You ask. She pops her lips softly. "That's somehow...worse." "Wow." You say in surprise. She pushes the mug to the side of the table. Suddenly, a man stumbles into the table, knocking over the beer. He's very obviously drunk as hell. "What the fuck are you doing?" He slurs out. "We were sitting here." Mireille says bluntly. "No you fffffucking weren't. You were (burp) moving." "That's b-because you're drunk, s-sir." You say. He chuckles. "I'm fine. I've only had a couple drinks you fucking slut." Mireille's head snaps to face him. "What the fuck did you just say?" She says angrily. He chuckles, spraying spittle onto her face. "Your black bitch friend. She's a slut. You're a slut too." "Look. You're going to walk off or I'm going to feed you your teeth." "You couldn't cause a bruise if you wanted to.." He's interrupted by Mireille punching him directly in the nose. He stumbles backwards, bellowing in pain and blood gushing out of his nose.


	23. Chapter 23

Chapter 23 (Mireille’s POV)

“You broke my fucking nose!” He yells out angrily and drunkenly. “I warned you. You brought this upon yourself." He swings at your face and you catch it with one hand. You then punch him in the face with the other hand. He goes down like a domino and stays down. He's not dead, just unconscious. You turn to face the rest of the tavern. Everyone is staring at you and Olivia. "Does anyone else want to act stupid?" You half yell to the room. 10 men stand up and start walking towards you. Olivia stands up. "I th-think we should've left." She says nervously. "I should've kept my mouth shut." You mutter. The ensuing brawl is brutal. Not for you or Olivia, for the men. They are not prepared to fight people with augmentations. You deliberately hold yourself back because you could easily kill all of them. Once the fight's over, you look over the mayhem you've wrought. All of them are on the floor with broken bones or are unconscious. Suddenly, the door to the tavern bursts open and a soldier walks in. "Now what the hell's going on here?" He demands sternly. He sees the carnage and his expression turns to a combination of impressed and scared. "Holy hell. What the hell happened here?" He asks. "The idiot lying in a pool of his own blood, spit and piss insulted my companion. I punched him...and it all went downhill." "So the two of you, by yourself, took down eleven grown men?" He asks. "Y-yes?" Olivia says. He whistles a single note. If it was a wolf whistle, you would've broken his jaw. "I'm...impressed. Really I am. I've never known a woman who's that good at fighting." He walks over to the both of you and smiles. "In fact, I might have a job opening for you." "Yes?" Olivia asks unsuredly. "Me and my boys have been tasked by Lord Sarkozy to hunt down a metal demon that's been terrorizing the countryside these past few months. You heard about this?" "Yes." You say. His smile widens. "Excellent! I’m captain Aldis. My unit could use some fighters like you. I'm surrounded by incompetents and drunkards. You could really urge them to get back into shape." Again, it’s this planet’s passive aggressive version of a compliment.” He leads the two of you outside. Hitched up to a post is a large brown horse. “Do you two have a horse?” He asks. “No..” You say, looking at the horse with uncertainty. It’s the size of an average sized tyranid warrior but it’s not an insect. The guy shrugs. “Guess you’ll have to walk back to camp. Juno here can hold two people at most. Not three. It’s only about a mile outside of town. Are you okay with that?” He asks. “Yes.” You say, secretly glad you don't have to get on that animal. He smiles awkwardly. “I’ll lead you to where my men are. I’m not just going to leave you here.” “Thanks.” Olivia says. He rides forward, leaving you to follow him. “Well, I guess we’ve got help.” You say while shrugging. “He had a really nice horse. Really well bred creature.” Olivia mutters. “What?” You say. “Nothing.”


	24. Chapter 24

Chapter 24: (Olivia's pov)

About half an hour later, Aldis leads you to his camp. There are several tents clustered around a central campfire. There are several horses hitched to posts around the camp. "Well, this is it." Aldis says. He gets off his horse and hitches it. "Alright you fucking idiots, get on out here! I've got an announcement to make." About ten soldiers come out of their tents. They're all wearing white tunics and brown pants. "What do you want?" One of them asks. "Shut up roberto. I want to introduce…what are your names again?" "I'm Mireille chone and this is my assistant Olivia Medine." Mireille says bluntly. "What the fuck aldis, why are these women here?" Another soldier says. "They're here to help us capture the metal demon." Aldis says. One of the soldiers spits out a wad of tobacco juice on the ground. "How the fuck are they going to help us? Moral support?" He asks rudely. You notice Mireille clenching and unclenching her fists. "No. These two are actually good fighters. Shut up. I found them in the tavern after they beat up ten men who tried to fight them." You can practically hear their eyes rolling. Aldis sighs. "Look, they're going to work with us from now on. Deal with it."

After a night of bad sleep and fitful dreams, you wake up to Mireille standing over you. "Is-is there a problem?" You ask nervously. "No. Just wanted to have you awake before these assholes woke up. Call me paranoid if you want, but I trust them about as far as I could throw G-45." "Probably a smart idea." You say. About ten minutes later, aldis wakes up and stretches while yawning. He then takes a few steps and kicks a sleeping figure in the back. “OW! WHAT THE FUCK ALDIS?!” Demands the man, who’s now very much awake. “You’re the chef grimsby and I’m hungry. I think you can put two and two together.” Mireille leans closer to you. “Methinks that captain Aldis is a bit of an asshole.” You nod your head. “I think you’re right. What have we gotten ourselves into here?” You mutter. Grimsby creates a small fire and puts a cast iron pot on top of it. He chucks a few chunks of meat in there, some potatoes, some carrots and various assorted vegetables. After 30 minutes, he smacks the side of it with a wooden spoon. “Alright everyone, get your stew.” You and mireille take a bowl and sit down away from everyone else. The stew is red in color with large chunks of vegetables and meat. It’s not bad. Could use a little seasoning, but it’s rather nice. After finishing the stew, you hand your bowls back to grimsby. “How was it?” He asks. “I thought it was rather nice. I enjoyed it.” He smiles. He’s a short portly man with a kind smile. He reminds you of your grandfather.  
After the soldiers pack up the camp, Captain Aldis leads a horse to you. “You’re going to need this in order to keep up with us.” He says, handing the reins to you before walking off. Mireille looks at the horse before looking at you. “Do you have any idea how to steer one of these things? Because I have no clue.” You nod your head while patting the horse on the head. He’s a very good looking horse. He’s dark grey with black speckles and a long mane. “That’s it. You’re alright boy.” You mutter to the horse before getting on it. You pull her up on top of it and in front of you on the saddle. You ride up to the rest of the group. They’re all on their horses. Aldis rides up in front and turns to face everyone. “Alright. Let’s try to actually do our jobs and find this metal demon. I’m sick of sleeping outside.” “Captain Aldis, It’s only been a week. And the country is pretty big.” Grimsby says with annoyance. “Shut up grimsby. You might like smelling like a horse, but I’m pretty sick of it. Now get to work.” He rides off. Once he’s out of earshot, Mireille speaks up. “Is it safe to say that everyone here hates him because he’s an asshole?” Mirielle asks. Literally everyone either nods or says yes. “Glad to see we’re on the same page.” 

After two hours of fairly pointless searching and trying to track Sigurdsson, all of you regroup. Aldis sighs and pinches the bridge of his nose. "So..nobody has any idea where it is?" "No sir." One of the soldiers says. He groans. "What am I paying you idiots for? It's been a fucking week and we're no closer to finding this goddamn thing." "If you let me bring my hounds, we could've gotten its scent but nooooo, you don't like dogs." Says another soldier. "SHUT UP WILLARD!" Aldis screams at him while throwing a glove at willard. This spooks his horse and it bucks him off before running away. "God fucking damn it!" Willard groans. Aldis sighs. "Anyone want to go find it?" He says somberly. "I'll find it." You say. Aldis smiles. "Really? That's not what I was expecting but okay. Can't go any worse than if one of these idiots tried to find it." You roll your eyes and ride off in the direction that the horse took. 

Once you're out of earshot, Mireille groans. "Holy fuck, that dude's an asshole." "Yes." You say bluntly. "And not even in a kind of fun way like Sigurdsson. He's just an abrasive dick." There's a pause. "I can't believe that I just said that." She says. After about twenty minutes, you find the horse. It's eating some plants. You get off your horse and walk up to it. It allows you to pat it and lead it to the other horse. "I've noticed that you're really comfortable around horses." Mireille says. You smile. "My grandfather was a farm worker for his entire life. And as soon as I was old enough, I was also working on the farm. Every weekend and the summer, I was working. So I'm very used to working with farm animals. But especially horses." Mireille leans on the saddle and narrows her one biological eye. "What's that over there?" She says while pointing at whatever it is. She gets off the horse and leads you to whatever it is. There's a cave in the side of a hill. It looks pretty big from here. "Now if I was hiding from the law, I'd probably try to hide in something like this." Mireille says. "Agreed." Mireille sticks her head in the cave. "Smells like mold in here and...oil." She turns to face you. "I think he's in there." "Should we tell the others about this?" You ask. She shakes her head. "No. That probably wouldn't end well." You hitch up the horses to a tree and sigh before the two of you enter the cave.


	25. Chapter 25

Chapter twenty five (Mireille's POV)

The cave is dark, damp, chilly, and smells not great. It smells like mold and you think algae. There's a decent amount of moderately interesting looking rock formations, but nothing special. You look at the floor and see peculiar looking tracks gouged into the dirt of the cave. They're small and the gait looks like a scuttle. You lean down to get a better look at them. "This is definitely him." You say as a display on your vision tells you that the tracks were made by something with three legs. 

After twenty minutes of walking, you and Olivia enter a large room. In the back of the room, you see a figure huddled around a fire. The figure is wearing a red robe. You smile and walk closer to him. Suddenly, he turns around. He's holding a halberd. "Who's there? Show yourself!" He says rapidly and nervously. "Relax sigurdsson, it's just us. Here to pull your sorry ass off of this planet." You walk into range of his vision. His grip on the halberd loosens and he fully stands up before walking up to you. When he's five feet away from you, he pauses. "Mireille? Olivia? Is that...actually you?" He asks while making a noise that sounds like..crying? "Yeah.." You say. He drops the halberd and rushes forward before hugging both of you. "Oh machine god, I'm so happy to see you two." His tone of voice is genuine relief and joy. There's something going on here. 

"Okay, what the fuck is going on here? Why are you hugging us?" You ask bluntly. He disengages and rubs his hands nervously. "Right right. We need to get off this planet NOW!" He says firmly. He sounds genuinely scared. Terrified even. He grabs the halberd and grips it tightly. "And after we get off this godforsaken planet, the inquisition NEEDS to know what's going on here." 

The situation has suddenly become much more grim. If sigurdsson is saying that the inquisition needs to be alerted, you know something's gone horribly wrong. "Sigurdsson. What is going on?" You ask him. "It's bad. Very very bad." He says while gathering up random papers. "Wh-what is it?" Olivia asks nervously. He stands back up and looks around before sighing. "Alright. I'll tell you what's going on. Or at least what I know is happening. The first week was admittedly amusing. I terrified a couple of farmers, which was pretty funny. But it went south once Lord Sarkozy's men started hunting me down. I had to kill some to defend myself. And when I was moving them in order to create a bonfire, I noticed a tattoo on the wrist of one of the soldiers. It…." He looks around nervously before leaning in to you and Olivia. "It was the star of Chaos."


	26. Chapter 26

Chapter 26 (Mireille's POV)  
That information scares you. The mood for you and Olivia has rapidly gone from pleasantness to fear. “Did all of them have the star on them?” He nods his head. “Yes. All of them. Every. Single. One. It was either tattooed or etched into their flesh. And the captain of that particular group had the mark of nurgle branded onto his chest.” He says gravely. You scratch your head and sigh. "So that means that the soldiers we were with are also probably chaos cultists." Sigurdsson steps back and points the halberd at you two. "Get away from me. Get away from me." He says, absolutely terrified. You hold your hands up. "Sigurdsson, It's us. It's just us. You know us. We have a slightly hostile relationship back on the archimedes. You tell bad jokes, I insult you right back. We're not going to hurt you." You say, trying to convince him. He looks at you and loosens his grip on the halberd. "I'm..I'm sorry for that. I've been alone for two months with only my paranoia keeping me company. Aside from those soldiers I kidnapped and tortured for information before killing them." "O-okay. You...t-tortured people for information?" Olivia says. He nods his head and gestures to a heap of dead bodies in the corner of the cave. "They probably deserved it, they were probably chaos cultists." You tell yourself mentally. "What did you get out of them?" You ask. He goes over to the heap and pulls out a blood and rotten corpse juice stained scroll. "Ewww." You say. "Shut up. You cut open tyranids on the regular. These are at least humans. Even if they've been dammed by the ruinous powers." He says sarcastically. You never thought you would think this, but It's nice to see normal jackassy sigurdsson again. He walks up to you and shows you the scroll. "I can't read it. It's been damaged by corpse juice." You say. He sighs. "That's fine, I committed it to memory. It's from a foreman to lord Sarkozy. It said that progress on the excavation of Wilbourn's mine is going well. But he still doesn't know why they're excavating a mine that's been abandoned for generations." "So there's probably something in that mine that the nurgle cult wants." You say. "Most likely." "Those s-soldiers that we were with earlier will p-probably try to find us. I mean, we've been g-gone for about an hour." Olivia says. Sigurdsson perks up. "That might give us an opportunity." He says while rolling the scroll back up. "What are you planning?" You ask. "Here's my idea. You two go back to the soldiers and just ask a few questions here and there. Nothing major. Just a little information. And once night falls, sneak away from them and meet me back at the ship." "What if aldis g-gets sick of being outside and decides to go b-back to civilization. L-like the lord's castle? I overheard him saying that the lord Sarkozy has a c-castle." Sigurdsson puts one of his hands to his chin. "If that happens, act natural. Maybe snoop around and see if you can find any information. But don't stay there long. Get back to the ship by dawn." You sigh. "I mean, that's as good of a plan that we have. Or...we could just fucking kill them and go back to the ship." Sigurdsson shakes his head. "No no no no. Bad idea. Very BAD idea. Sarkozy has so many people under his payroll. If you kill those soldiers, he'll almost immediately sic more on you. I know from personal experience. I've killed 50 people in the past two months. And we don't know what daemonic allies they have." You sigh again. "Good point, good point. Olivia and I are going back to the soldiers, here's the ship's coordinates." You tell him the coordinates via binary. He nods his head. "Thank you. Good luck. And may the omnissiah protect us all."


	27. Chapter 27

Chapter twenty seven. (Olivia's POV)   
You lead the horse back to the soldiers. Aldis claps sarcastically. "Took you long enough. That was over an hour of waiting for that goddamn horse." Willard takes his horse's reins and remounts it. "Now don't fucking lose it again. Next time, you'll be finding the damn thing." You see Willard considering drawing a dagger, but he decides to not draw it. Aldis takes a swig from a flask around his waist. "Right, if we don't find this fucking demon today, I'm going back to the castle. I need a proper meal and more importantly, a bath." He rides off and everyone follows. 

After seven hours of equally pointless searching and deliberately leading them away from Sigurdsson, Aldis stops his horse and takes a massive gulp out of his flask. He takes several giant gulps before tossing it to the side. “Are you..fucking..serious? How are you this incompetent. How hard is it to find this thing?” He looks at you and Mirielle. “And what the hell did I hire you for then? You’re just as useless as the men. Probably even more useless. No, you are more useless. What the fuck was I thinking? Of course you two wouldn’t be able to do anything.” He says in exasperation. You see Mireille restraining her urge to leap off the horse and gouge his throat out with her bare hands. Aldis pulls out another flask out of a satchel and takes a swig from it. “Bit early to get drunk, isn’t it?” Mireille asks. “Shut up. I’ll drink when I want. After I finish this, we’re going back to the castle.” He drains it in a few gulps before chucking it away. It breaks against a tree. “Back. We’re going back.” He slurs out. He awkwardly rides off.

“Any idea how much alcohol was in that drink that aldis was slugging down?” You ask Mireille while riding behind everyone else. “What my mechanical eye was able to see and analyze though this bandanna, I think it had a 60% alcohol content. “And he drank two of them in a row.” You say with a combination of amazement and worry. “If he’s not dead drunk already, he will be soon. Unless his liver has been..enhanced.” If he’s a cultist, he might be able to process alcohol better. 

After half an hour, you come up to a castle. It’s a big, ugly, grey structure made of stones. Nothing really remarkable. You go into the main courtyard with the rest of the soldiers. A man steps out of the castle and up to aldis. “Ah, Captain Aldis. How was the hunt for that metal demon?” He asks pleasantly. Aldis groans. “Awful. Absolutely awful. We found absolutely nothing, I’m filthy, I haven’t had a good meal in a week, and I need to get drunk as soon as possible.” He says angrily. The other man smiles and shakes his head. “That’s about what I expected. I’ll have someone else look for that thing tomorrow…” His voice trails off when he sees you helping Mireille down. “Now just who are those people?” He asks with a tone that strikes you badly. Aldis shakes his head. “Those are….what are your names again? I can’t remember if I asked you. If I did, I was probably plastered.” Aldis says while taking a swig from yet another flask. “I can hear your liver scarring from here. That’s the third flask of liquor you’ve had in as many hours.” “Shut up. Shut up and let me get drunk.” He says before pocketing the flask. The other man walks up to you and Mirielle and smiles. His teeth are better than most that you’ve seen on this planet, but still not good. "So who are you two fine ladies?" He asks pleasantly. "I'm Mireille and she's Olivia. She's my assistant." Mireille says. The man tilts his head to the side. "Ahh. So you're a woman of learning, yes?" He asks. "Yes. I guess she's also my bodyguard." His smile widens, revealing that his teeth are a lot grosser than you previously thought. "Really? Are you one of the battle sisters of Swuaria?" He asks excitedly. "Yes." You say, playing it off. His face lights up. "It's a pleasure to meet you. I've been told stories about your fighting prowess for my entire life and I've always wanted to meet one of them." He shakes your hand. His hand is warm and moist. "And who is shaking the hands of my assistant?" Mireille asks annoyedly. He turns to face her. "I'm lord Sarkozy. Owner of this castle and the surrounding countryside." You get a good look at him. He's five foot five inches tall and broad chested. His hair is dirty brown colored. He's wearing a dark purple doublet with a white ruffled collar. He's also wearing a pair of black pants and fine shoes. A large buckle is on his waist. He has a greying brown goatee. His eyes are dark green. 

He seems nice enough, but you're distrustful just in case he's been corrupted by chaos. He looks over to some servants who have gathered around him. "Lead these fine ladies to their quarters and bring them some clean clothing." He turns back to you and Mireille. "I hope you'll enjoy your stay at my home."


	28. Chapter 28

Chapter 28 (Mireille's POV)

About twenty minutes later, You and Olivia are led to a room by a servant. He stops at the door of the room. "There are two dresses on the beds for you two ladies. Dinner will be served in an hour in the great hall. I'll see myself out." He walks away and the two of you enter the room. It's decently decorated and furnished. There are two beds; one nicer than the other, two chests and two nightstands. On the beds are two dresses. Yours is significantly nicer than Olivia's. The one intended for Olivia looks pretty baggy. The fabric of the nicer dress is dark blue with white diamond patches. The skirt part of it is long and cream colored. You pick it up and shake your head. "There's not a chance in hell this'll fit on me with all my augmentations." "What about mine?" Olivia asks while showing hers to you. The bodice is olive green with grey sleeves. The skirt is tan and floor length. It's too big for Olivia, but it'll fit you perfectly. "Oh this'll work great!" You say happily. You hand your dress to her and she hands hers to you. After putting them on, you get a good look at Olivia. She looks stunning in the dress. "H-how do I look?" She asks. "Really good. Like, if people weren't expecting us to come to dinner and if we weren't at risk of being murdered by chaos, we'd probably be passionately making out right now." She blushes. "Wow. Direct." She says quietly.

You go down to the great hall. It's a large room with a long mahogany table. On the walls are shields, swords and taxidermied animals and birds. It looks stereotypically medieval. On the table is a massive feast of giant roasts, giant pies, soups and an absolutely massive cake. There's no real fruit or vegetables really though. Sarkozy walks up to you and his smile fades slightly. "Oh, you're wearing the clothes intended for the other one." He says crestfallen. You smirk. "The dress you intended for me fits my assistant far better. And I decided to treat her with it because she's not exactly used to wearing such finery." His smile returns. “Oh, I’m sure. Is it true that most of the battle sisters of Swuaria don’t wear that much clothing or no clothing at all when they hunt down prey?” You have a mental image of a more feral version of Olivia wearing only a loincloth hunting down some sort of large animal before killing it with a spear. It’s an admittedly nice mental image. But you need to answer him. “Why yes. It depends on the warrior, but most of them wear little to no clothing at all. In fact, my assistant was only wearing a loincloth when I met her.” Olivia looks at you incredulously. You shoot her a look that tells her to go along with it. “She had just speared a boar and was about to cut it open when she noticed me.” You got boar from one of the taxidermied heads in the great hall. “And what happened then?” Sarkozy asks, almost giddy. “Well..She freaked out and one of her sisters gouged out my eye in response. But that’s to be expected from a group of savages like them.” You internally scream at that statement. Sarkozy rubs his goatee. “So how did you manage to survive? I’ve heard that the battle sisters tend to be rather unfriendly to outsiders. Usually, they flay them alive.” You scour your brain for something that would satisfy his weird racist, misogynistic world view. “I showed her and her sisters a mirror. They were so taken aback, they let me join their particular group for a few weeks.” Sarkozy makes a hmm noise in his throat. “I see. So how did a savage like her from the country of swuaria end up in the country of Echil, more than 2000 miles away?” He asks. “Well, she was bitten by a snake and I saved her life. After that, she became extremely dedicated to me. Refused to leave my side. Which continues to this day.” You can’t see her, but you can tell Olivia’s rolling her eyes. “And what happened after Ms. Olivia became your companion?” He asks. “Well, I had to return home but I couldn’t have a mostly nude savage that didn’t speak any civilized languages following me. The scandal would sink my career. So I taught her basic civilized languages and taught her to wear the clothing of people who’ve moved past a hunter gatherer lifestyle. It took a while, but I managed to make a servant out of a savage. The final step was changing her name. Her birth name was Olivocyra. I decided that Olivia was close enough to that and she didn’t complain. And she’s been my companion ever since.” This seems to satisfy him and he walks away. You turn to face olivia. “I am, so sorry about that.” You say with embarrassment. “It was definitely..something. I’ll give it that.” She says sarcastically. 

About twenty minutes later, you’re sat down at the table in the great hall. You’re seated next to Olivia. She takes a large bird leg, mashed potatoes and a large goblet of wine. You take a slice from one of the giant meat pies. You cut it open and sigh. "What's wrong?" Olivia asks with a mouthful of meat. "There's no fucking vegetables in this goddamn pie. You'd think there'd be some fucking vegetables on this table." "It's unbecoming for a lady to curse. And vegetables are for peasants. Everyone knows that." Says a man next to you. You give him a withering glare. He shrinks back and goes back to eating. You take a sip of the wine provided. It tastes like fruity vinegar. But infinitely better than whatever they served you in that tavern. Sarkozy stands up and clinks his wine glass with a spoon. Everyone quiets down and looks at him. "I'd like to make a toast to our distinguished guests and our valiant captain Aldis. Let's hope that he finally catches that damn meter demon." There's forced laughter from everyone at the table. Aldis scowls before grabbing a bottle of liquor and pounding it back.


	29. Chapter 29

Chapter twenty nine (Mireille's POV)  
After dinner, you're led back to your room by another servant. Once night falls, you and Olivia change back into the clothes you were wearing before and quietly exit the room. 

The two of you wander around the castle for an hour before you peak into the lord's office. He's not in there, but your mechanical eye detects a secret passageway hidden behind a bookshelf. You trigger it and cautiously enter it. After walking for twenty minutes, you come across several rooms. You open the door to one just a crack and peak in. Clustered around a small wooden table are three people. Lord Sarkozy, Captain Aldis and a nightmare of a man. The third man is eight feet tall and clad in dark green, filthy power armor. His stomach is bloated and the armor barely covers it. A cloud of flies buzz around him. His flesh oozes through the joints in his armor. The exposed flesh is grey and covered with pus filled boils and black lesions. He's wearing a helmet that has a cluster of lenses over each eye. Two deer like horns sprout from the top of his helmet. Slime and mold drapes off of them. You realize what this is in horror. This is a corrupted space marine. This is a plague marine of nurgle.

The plague marine sucks in a breath before speaking. "How much longer must I wait?" He asks angrily. His voice is deep and sounds like his vocal cords are rotting. Which is a very real possibility for a plague marine. His voice sounds like what you imagine sewer sludge would sound like if it could speak and it was pissed. Sarkozy rubs his hands nervously. “We just need a little more time, lord ebolus.” He says nervously. Ebolus brings a giant gloved first down on the table, breaking it in half. “It has been months sarkozy. My patience is wearing thin. The artifact MUST be found!” “It’s not that simple, my lord. That mine has been abandoned for generations. The workers have to remove hundreds of years worth of debris.” “If that’s the case, why aren’t there more slaves working on the mine?” Ebolus demands. “I can’t just start enslaving people for this project sir. I’m already not the most well liked of people. If I started forcing people to excavate the mine, I’d probably have an uprising on my hands.” Ebolus laughs. It’s a terrible sound. “I think my brothers can help you in that regard. We’ll be able to put down any and all uprisings easily. Just get more workers at that mine.” He says angrily before cracking his knuckles. “Or else…” he suddenly lunges at aldis and swipes at him with a hand with blades attached to the fingers. The impact tears open aldis’s skin. For a brief second, he’s fine. But then, he starts to change. Veins of black creep through him as his skin turns ashy grey. After his skin turns ashy grey, boils full of pus and lesions burst out of his skin. He bends over and wretches. A river of blood, pus and greenish black bile erupts from his mouth and blood begins dripping out of his nose and eyes. He makes a gurgling noise before falling onto the ground. He twitches like a dying fish. Ebolus laughs again. “Looks like he didn’t take too well to the gifts of the plaguefather. But as I was saying, If I don’t have that artifact in a month, this..” He brings one giant boot up before bringing it down onto aldis’s head with a crash. His head explodes like a rotten pumpkin, showering the room in half rotted grey matter. Ebolus’s flies descend from him, eat his flesh and start laying eggs inside aldis’s still warm corpse. “Will be you. So don’t disappoint me.” “Yes. My lord.” Ebolus laughs again. “I’m glad I got through to you. Once the artifact is ours, those bastards that follow the harlot Slaanesh won’t know what will have hit them.” You’re not mentally prepared to deal with more than one faction of chaos so you nope the fuck out of there. Oliva looks pale and is trembling. She’s not infected, just absolutely terrified. “W-we need t-to get out of h-here.” She whispers to you, her stutter going into overdrive. “Agreed.” You say quietly and bluntly. The two of you are about to get out of the castle when someone hits you on the back of the head. You fall down and pass out.


	30. Chapter 30

Chapter thirty: (Mireille's POV)  
You wake up in a dark, cold, filthy room. You've been stripped of your old clothing and put into rags. The same goes for Olivia. Examination with your sensors shows that neither of you have been sexually assaulted. Good. There would be hell to pay if either of you were. Your head is throbbing with pain. You gently shake Olivia awake and she blears into consciousness. "W-where are we?" She asks nervously. "One of the last places we're going to see before we die." Hisses out a man's voice. You focus on the direction that the sound came from and see a man sitting up against a wall. He's only wearing a pair of ratty pants. "Do you know where we are?" You ask as politely as circumstances allow. He spits at your feet. "Yeah. But I ain't telling you two freaks nothing." He says with disgust. You guess his tone is because he can see your and Olivia's augmentations. "Well, thanks for nothing I guess." You mutter to yourself. "Look at you. You're probably whores that belong to the metal demon." You respond by striding over to him, picking him up, and breaking his nose. "You wanna say that to me again, motherfucker?" You ask angrily. "No.." He says in terror. You notice five other people cowering from you. "You mind telling me where the fuck we are?" "We're in the dungeons under the lord's arena in his castle. We'll have to fight beasts for his and the crowd's amusement." Says a malnourished woman. "Ah, the old bread and circus routine." You say. "We're all going to die." Mutters another man. You drop the man with a broken nose and walk back to Olivia. "Okay, the situation is not great." "I-I-n-noticed." She stammers out. She rubs her hands. "Any ideas on h-how to g-get out of h-here?" She asks. "No." She sighs softly. "We're doomed, aren't we?" She asks softly. "Well unless Sigurdsson comes to save us, probably. We'll have to figure this out ourselves as we go." "If w-we are g-going to die here, I'm g-glad I met y-you." You hug her. "Same here. Same here, Olivia." A metal door on the side of the dungeon opens and ten men wearing dark green armor and carrying halberds walk in. They point the halberds at you and the people. Their armor has the star of chaos and various nurgle symbols etched on it. "Move." The lead one says, corralling everyone into the arena. You shield your eye from the sunlight. Your mechanical eye shows you that the arena is a large circular thing with a sand floor. There are stands on the walls of the arena filled with hundreds of jeering people. Quite a few of them look mutated with Nurgle's 'gifts'. In an elaborate box in the stands, you see Lord Sarkozy, some courtesans and ebolus. Ebolus looks bored as hell. Sarkoy raises one of his hands and the crow goes silent. “Greetings everyone. It’s a fine day today.” The only reason you can hear him is because of your augmentations. “Today, several people will be put to death. The first are those miserable sods over there.” He points to the other people in the arena that have distanced themselves from you and Olivia. The crowd jeers and throws rotten vegetables at them. Sarkozy silences them with another hand raise. “But the main attraction of course, are the two metal freaks who had the gaul to enter my home and try to steal from me. I’m sure you’ve all heard of the metal demon over the past few months. Well, I suppose these two are the property of him. They’re the whores of the metal demon!” The crowd erupts into jeering laughter. You look at sarkozy and make a mental promise to kick his face in if you survive. “But enough stalling. Guards, give them their weapons!” The guards drop a wicker basket full of rusty weapons. You take an axe and Olivia takes a sword and a spear. The other people take various weapons. Sarkozy chuckles. “Now that the combatants are armed, RELEASE THE BEAST!”

(Olivia’s POV)  
A portcullis on one of the walls to the arena opens and a large animal bursts open. You hear the other combatants gasp in terror. “A Xolo lizard. We’re doomed!” The malnourished woman says in despair. The xolo lizard isn’t particularly frightening if you’re going to be honest. The body of the creature is fifty feet long with another twenty feet for the tail. The neck of the lizard has a folded up frill and it has a crest on its head. The eyes of the lizard are big and look around the arena lazily. The body of the lizard is covered in dark green and red scales. It has six legs to support its large body. Mireille scoffs. “Really? This thing? You’re afraid of this?” She’s interrupted by it opening its mouth and a long tongue shooting out of it. It sticks to one of the other people and drags the unfortunate into its mouth. The person screams before the Xolo lizard breaks his spine with his jaw and swallows him whole. Mirielle groans. “Me and my big mouth.”  
The next ten minutes are spent circling around the arena as the xolo beast slowly but surely eats the other combatants. It almost seems bored by the whole thing. Like it doesn’t really care about the people it’s eating. It’s like it’s eating because it can, not because it actually wants to. You get smacked by its tail at one point, tearing the clothes off of your torso. You aren’t actually hurt, but it'll probably bruise if you’ll survive today. When that happened, you heard the crowd going wild at seeing your breasts. If this were normal circumstances, you’d be mortified if a large crowd of people saw you half nude. But you’re fighting a giant lizard for the amusement of a chaos corrupted lord and his plague marine friend. So modesty is at the bottom of your worries. The Xolo lizard grabs another person with its tongue and curls up and closes its eyes. The crowd boos and starts throwing things at the lizard. Mireille runs up to you. “I have a plan.” “I-I’m all ears. W-what is it?” You ask. “Once that thing decides to get back to eating us, I’ll embed my tendrils into the ground and hope that its tongue isn’t strong enough to pull me into its mouth. If I’m not eaten, I want you to cut its tongue off.” You look at her with a look of disbelief. “Th-that is a terrible idea!” You say in protest. She shrugs. “It’s the only idea I have. Other than being slowly picked off by a giant chameleon.” You grip your sword tightly. “Alright good luck. May the emperor protect both of us.”

(Mireille’s POV)  
After being pelted with rubbish for a few minutes, the xolo lizard makes a frustrated groaning noise and stands up. It notices you and slowly walks towards you. You imbed your tentacles as deep into the ground as you can. Once the xolo lizard is twenty feet away, it stops and opens its mouth. The tongue shoots out and grabs you. It’s slimy, strong and grossly warm. You feel yourself being pulled, but it’s not strong enough to pull you off of your position. It tries to reel you in and hisses in frustration when it realizes you’re not going to play nice. Olivia jumps in with her sword and wildly hacks at its tongue. With 10 swings, she cuts his tongue in half. The xolo lizard screams in pain and recoils. It tries to go back where it came, but the portcullis has closed. Olivia throws the sword she was holding and fully grips the spear. She jumps onto the back of the xolo lizard and starts stabbing it in the neck with the spear. The xolo lizard’s frill fully expands and it screeches in agony. After stabbing it twenty five ish time in the neck, Olivia stabs the lizard in the base of the skull. It shudders before going limp and falling to its side. It’s dead. Olivia jumps off before it hits the ground and pulls the spear out of its carcass. You realize that this is the real life version of your mental image of the feral olivia; topless, rippling with muscle, holding a spear, and covered in the blood of an exotic animal. It’s even more sexually thrilling than your fantasy. The crowd jeers and boos at her for killing the Xolo lizard. Lord Sarkozy tries to silence them, but they’re far too mad to listen. Olivia walks up to you and smiles the smile of a very frazzled person. “Th-that wasn’t too bad, n-now was it.?” She giggles out. Suddenly, ebolus gets off of his chair and leaps from his luxury box into the arena. He’s holding a chainsword. You put yourself in front of Olivia as he slowly walks towards the two of you. He activates the chainsword and is about to charge at you when he’s distracted by a loud rumbling noise.

You look up and the rumbling gets louder. The rumbling turns into the scream of aircraft engines as the ship you and Olivia took to get her flies overhead before hovering over the two of you. The intercom system on the ship crackles before whoever is piloting it starts talking. “STAND DOWN!” Sigurdsson yells at ebolus. “You beautiful bastard.” you mutter happily. “What?” Ebolus asks. “I SAID, STAND DOWN, YOU SLIME SPAWN!” Sigurdsson demands. “Or what?” Ebolus says with a tint of fake fear in his voice. “This ship is equipped with two heavy assault cannons. Each of which fires 65 thirty millimeter bullets a second. And both of them are pointed directly at your accursed body.” Ebolus chuckles and sticks his chainsword into the ground. “So now what? Who are you and what are your demands?” Sigurdsson chuckles nervously and you hear the sound of him knocking something over. “As for who I am: I am the goddamn metal demon.” A ripple of fear goes through the crowd. “And what I want is simple. I want to pick up my coworkers unmolested and be allowed to leave. Afterwards, I’ll allow you to jack off to shit or whatever nurgle worshippers do for fun.” Ebolus chuckles. “Bold. I like you. Anything else you want?” He asks sarcastically. “Well, I’d really like it if you took that chainsword and used it to decapitate yourself.” Sigurdsson says with venom in his voice. “That’s not going to happen.” Ebolus says. “I figured as much. But will you let me recover my coworkers?” Ebolus picks up his chainsword. “No..” He’s cut off by the ship’s cannons firing. The noise they make is a loud “BRRRT!” Ebolus is liquified by the bullets. The horns on his helmet shoot off into different parts of the arena. Ebolus is quickly reduced into a cloud of greyish green dust. But while Sigurdsson is firing, you hear the sound of a bolter firing. The bolter round hits one of the aircraft’s engines and it starts falling. “FUUUUUUCK!” Sigurdsson screams as it crashes into the area, crushing several hundred people. 

Once it settles, Sigurdsson crawls out of the wreckage and limps towards you. Before he gets to you, five more plague marines jump out of the luxury box and slowly start walking toward you. All five of them are carrying bolters. “Come on..Come on. Where the hell are you?” Sigurdsson mutters softly and rapidly. He’s finally lost it, you think. “Olivia, since we’re probably going to die very soon, I have a confession to make.” You say. “Y-yes?” She asks. “I really like you and I wish we could’ve started dating.” You say rapidly. “Same.” Olivia says. Sigurdsson glances at you before looking back to the plague marines. They cock their bolters. You step in front of Olivia and close your eyes, expecting to die. 

But instead, the plague marines are distracted by the sound of even more aircraft engines. You open your eyes and see two black hulled aircraft with a red gothic I emblazoned on the side of them. They stop and hover above the arena. The door on the first one opens and fifteen black templars jump out onto the arena floor. All of them are armed with bolters and chainswords. The second one hovers above the stands and 30 sisters of battle jump out. The sisters of battle start firing indiscriminately into the crowd while the black templars begin slaughtering the plague marines. A stray bolter round hits the luxury box and lord Sarkozy tumbles out of the box onto the arena floor. He lands with a thump and groans in pain. Once the fighting has calmed down slightly, you walk over to him and turn him over with your foot. His bones have been broken by the fall to the arena floor. His side has also been pierced by one of ebolus’s antlers.The antler has ruptured one of his arteries. He’s going to die. You crouch to look him in the eye. “You..” He slurs out. “What about me?” You ask sarcastically. “Five years. Five years I have known of father nurgle and have actively worshipped him. I was warned that people would come for me but they didn’t. But the day you arrive, this happens. What are you?” He wheezes out. You shrug. “I’m just a servant of the emperor.” Sarkozy laughs up an orange sized pool of blood. “The corpse emperor? He will be torn off the golden seat and will be forced to eat nurgle’s shit for all time. That is what I was promised.” You scowl and stand up. “You were lied to.” You bring your leg back and kick his face in. It’s immensely satisfying.


	31. Chapter 31

Chapter 31 (Olvia’s POV)  
Once the mayhem dies down, you, mireille and sigurdsson are taken to a briefing room on another ship. All three of you are sat down at a table. You’re still topless, so you cover your chest with your mechanical arm. There’s an awkward silence for a few minutes before sigurdsson talks. “So..are you two romantically involved?” He asks. “Do you care?” Mirielle asks defensively. “No. Not particularly. I assumed you two were romantically involved just from the way you act around each other.” He fiddles with a tear on his robe before sighing.

“I’ll cut the groxshit. Mireille, Olivia; thank you for coming to pick me up. I was fully expecting to die on this planet once I learned about the chaos cult. He says with a tone of genuine gratitude. It’s surprising to hear that come from him. This is the nicest he’s ever been. “Thanks for risking your neck to save us. I legitimately wasn’t expecting you to come to our rescue.” Mireille says. He chuckles. “I thought about leaving, but I decided to save you two first. Explaining why I abandoned my coworkers to fenror would be a pain in the ass and you’re a lot easier to annoy than him.” You roll your eyes and chuckle. Even when he’s being heroic, he’s still kind of a jackass. But you’re happy to see him back in his normal, abrasive mood. 

A member of the adeptus sororitas enters the room and tosses you a shirt. You quickly put it on. “Th-thank you.” You say. She nods her head. “Inquisitor Leuga is busy ‘Interviewing’ several of the cultists my sisters managed to capture and won’t be able to talk to you. Instead, I’ve been put to the task of interviewing you.” She sits at the head of the table. “My first question is directed at sigurdsson. Why are you here in the first place?” Sigurdsson clears his throat. (Or makes a sound that represents clearing his throat.) “Well, this was the result of an accident. I had acquired a necron teleportation node and was working on it.” The battle sister stiffens in her seat. “You were working on xenos technology? Why? For what purpose?” She asks sternly. “I was merely trying to understand how it functions. My intention was to see if there was a way to disrupt the necron teleportation to prevent them from teleporting off battlefields. Because necrons have a habit of doing that.” Sigurdsson says nervously. “And what happened?” She asks. “The module malfunctioned and backfired. And since I was holding it, it teleported me to this planet. Mireille and Olivia came here to find me.” “Thank you.” The sister says before turning to face you.

The next hour is spent being asked and answering questions. She’s very thorough in her questioning. You guess she’s making sure that none of you have any trace of chaos in you. But she’s polite. Stern, but polite. “Alright, I’m satisfied with your answers. Once inquisitor Leuga and my sisters have mopped up everything, we will return you to your station. All three of you will be traveling on my mission’s ship. You will be free to use the ships infirmary, baths, gym, library, chapel and mess hall. “Thank you.” You say gratefully. Sigurdsson stands up and walks off, muttering something about wanting to read. Once he’s gone, the sister looks directly at Mireille. “He actually contacted us right before going to rescue you. We were already planning on purging sarkozy and his entourage. He came as a completely unexpected addition.” “I would imagine so.” Mirielle says. “But I really wasn’t expecting to see you here, Mireille.” She says with a hint of mirth. Mireille blinks slowly. “Do I know you, sister?” “From another life.” She says while taking off her helmet. She puts it on the table. She’s a classically beautiful woman. Very well proportioned face. She has a short length of silver white hair. She has a small black fleur de lis tattooed on her left cheek bone. Her right cheek however is missing. It looks like it was burnt off, revealing silver inlaid teeth. Her right eye has a large scar going through it, causing it to be a pale white orb. Mireille seems to know her though. “Hello Helane.” She says calmly. Helane smiles, which looks really weird considering the whole disfigurement. “It’s been a long time hasn’t it? Fifty something years.” Helane says. “You look good for your age.” Mireille says awkwardly. “Aside from the massive facial disfigurement. I’ve received a handful of augmentations that extend my lifespan over the years.” “So who exactly are y-you?” You ask. “Remember when I said that my last relationship lasted 2 months before the girl had to go away to work for the imperium? Helane here was that woman. She joined the sisters of battle.” Helane nods. “There was no resentment between the two of us, we just knew that it wasn’t going to work.” 

“So what happened to your face?” Mirielle asks. “Genestealer bio-acid.” “Ah.”


	32. Chapter 32

Chapter 32 (Olivia’s POV)

About two weeks later, all three of you are on the ship of the adepta sororitas. It is called Titania. It's nice. It’s more like a church than a ship. There are so many religious symbols and statues all over the ship. It’ll be two and a half months before you get back to the station. The chapel of the ship has a giant golden statue of the emperor in front of a beautiful stained glass window. You kneel in front of it and thank him for sparing you and olivia. You aren’t a particularly religious person. You believe in the divinity of the emperor and his love for humankind unquestioningly, yes. But it’s always been just something you did and didn’t think much about it. But your near death experience in the arena and subsequent saving by the inquisition and the very brides of the emperor has fully renewed your faith in the emperor. You’ve been saved by the adeptus mechanicus and the sisters of battle. So he surely must have some plan for you. Mireille stands next to you. “Are you going to pray as well?” You ask. She shrugs. “Not exactly my flavor. I know the omnissiah and the emperor are one and the same, I just feel more comfortable praying to the machine god.” “That’s fair.” She sighs. “We’re finally going home.” You say. “Yes.” She says, sounding almost distracted by something on her mind. 

“Olivia. I have a question.” She suddenly says. “What?” You ask. “We’ve been intimate with each other for several months now.” “Y-yes.” You confirm. “Well, we’ve only really been fuck buddies. I was wondering if...you would like to take our relationship to the next level?” She asks awkwardly. “Wh-what do you mean?” You ask nervously. “Like going on actual dates and not just fucking every time we have a moment to ourselves? Are you okay with that?” You smile warmly. “I would like that a lot.” She smiles happily. “I’m..really glad to hear that. Also, we probably should go use this ship’s bathes. Neither of us have bathed in weeks and I’m sick of feeling gritty.” You stand up and follow her to the baths.

The baths are rather nice. They have tile floors, mosaic murals on the walls, benches, lounge chairs and pillars made of marble. In the center is a large square pool. You think it could hold up to fifty people. It gradually tapers from shallow into a deep end that you guess is twelve feet deep. The room is lit by warm orange colored light coming from electric lanterns sticking out of the wall. An artificial waterfall spills water into the pool. There are three sisters of battle leaning against the wall at the deep end of the pool. All of them are completely naked. They’re chatting about something. All of them are muscular. The one in the middle has dark skin and is bustier than the others. She has a scar that goes from her neck and disappears under the water. Something nasty must’ve caused that, you think to yourself. “See something you like?” Mireille asks jokingly while gently elbowing you. “S-sorry.” She laughs. “I’m just joshing with ya. They’re fucking hot.” She says while taking off her clothes. “As long as you don’t stare too much or touch them without permission, they probably won’t care.” She says before jumping into the pool and starts swimming. Her style of swimming is..interesting to say at the very least. It’s a breaststroke that also utilizes her tendrils to propel herself forward. She comes back up and whips her hair back. “You should come in. The water’s really nice and it actually contains compounds that clean you.” “You see that through your sensors?” You ask. “Yeah. Now will you strip and get in here already?” You strip and enter the water. The water is warm and it feels soothing against your skin. You see the dirt that's on you coming off of you and floating away. It looks like it’s being eaten by the water. 

After bathing for twenty minutes, you and mireille leave the pool and spend a few hours reading in the longue chairs. Afterwards, you have a nice dinner at the mess hall before going back to bed. It was a nice date.


	33. Chapter 33

Chapter 33: (Olivia’s POV)

A few weeks after returning to the station, you get a message from the xenos specimen supplier that the station will be receiving a shipment of genestealers and genestealer cultists. It occurs to you that you’ve never actually learned what a genestealer is. So you decide to ask mireille about them. After finding her in the lab, you ask her. She leans back in her chair and sighs. “Well, genestealers are one of the most insidious species that belong to the tyranid hive mind. In battle, they act as shock troopers. But their main purpose is infiltration. Let’s say a genestealer sneaks aboard a ship and makes his way onto a planet. Once on the planet, he will find someone vulnerable and attack. But it probably won’t kill that poor soul. Instead, they inject them with a microscopic tyranid organism with an ovipositor in the genestealer’s mouth. This tiny creature enslaves the host and changes their genetics into a human tyranid hybrid. Once transformed, the host seeks out some other poor soul to infect. Because the hybrid is overcome with an overwhelming urge to breed.” You grimace at that mental image. “Whoever is on the receiving end of that awfulness is also infected. If a woman is impregnated by a host, the child will be part of the growing cult of genestealer hybrids. Each of which worship the original genestealer as a god. As the cult grows stronger, the originator grows taller and stronger. The hybrids create more hybrids which make even more hybrids. After a few generations, the hybrids tend to take positions of power in the planetary government. They subtly dismantle defenses and prepare the planet for the horde. Once the progenitor perceives it to be time, the cult runs rampant throughout the planet and attempts to fully take control. If they’re strong enough and take control, the patriarch genestealer will unleash a psychic pulse that alerts the hivemind that the planet is ready for food. And once the hive fleet arrives, the cult is eaten along with the planet. “That’s grim as all hell.” You say. “Yes. The tyranids are genuinely terrifying.” She folds her arms. “And one of the hive fleets is fighting orkz currently.” “Really?” You ask. “Oh yeah. Some idiot of an inquisitor, kryptman. That was his name; kryptman. But that idiot decided to use genestealers to attract the hive fleet to the extremely powerful ork empire of octarius. I think he thought that they’d destroy each other. But tyranids rapidly evolve to deal with whatever opposition they encounter. And orkz love to fight. So every self respecting ork near there has flown over to fight. So whoever wins will be even stronger than before. You shudder at the mental thought of Orkz being even stronger than they already are. “Oh it gets worse. Some chaos space marines decided to get themselves involved and one of them ascended to daemonhood.” Mireille says grimly. 

“Well, remind me to never go to the octarius empire.” Sigurdsson says. He shrugs and holds up the halberd he had in the cave. He’s modified it to have a vibrating, electrified blade. “I decided that I rather liked this weapon and I kept it. But I thought it needed modifications. And now that it’s modified, I need a specimen to test it on. I planned on using Vetch, but I can’t find him.” He says cheerfully. “Wait, you wanted to use Vetch? I thought he’s your pet or something like that.” Mireille says. “Not really. Vetch was always intended to be used as a test subject. I have no affection for the thing. It’s a skaven after all.” He says calmly. “So what do you want to test it on?” You ask. “Nothing big. A ripper will work fine.” Mirielle gives him a ripper that’s in a jar of formaldehyde. “Thank you.” He says before walking away.


	34. Chapter 34

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Genestealer dissection and cuddling.

Chapter 34 (Mireille's POV)   
Two days later, the cargo ship that contains the genestealer corpses arrives and docks with the station. You and Olivia enter the station's loading bay and watch as the other ship's servitors unload large steel crates. One of them hands you a dataslate.

"Let's see. One broodlord, fourteen third generation hybrids, 6 fourth generation hybrids and three pure strain genestealers." You sign at the bottom and give it back to the servitor. It chirps happily before walking off. The station's servitors trundle up to the crates and pick them up. Once they reach your laboratory, they put the crates down. You thank the servitors for a good job and signal for them to leave. They trundle out of the room, leaving you and Olivia alone. You sigh. "Right. Let's unbox this bastard." You pick up a crowbar and pry open the largest one. Inside is the brood lord. You shudder slightly. Even though you've seen them so many times, genestealers always freak you out slightly. The brood lord is about ten feet tall. It’s dark purple with a dark blue exoskeleton. It has four disturbingly human-like hands. The fingers of the hands end in 15 inch long bayonet-like claws. Six square shaped spines protrude out of the back of the creature.The head of the creature is big, with an enlarged skull to house the large brain of the broodlord. The head of the brood lord has been blown open by bolter fire, exposing the brain. But the face is interesting. Instead of the normal dinosaur esque face, it has an octopus shaped face. Eight long tentacles sprout out of the face and cluster around a gigantic parrot-like beak. The suckers inside the tentacles have sharp calcified ‘teeth’. The suckers at the end of the tentacles have large bone hooks. “Unpleasant looking bastard.” Olivia says.”Yes. Especially this type. I imagine the suckers are to rip the flesh off of their enemies before shoving it into the beak. You put the brood lord on an operating table lying face up. You open up the beak with a stick. It’s big enough to bite off a human head. “Let’s see, chitin mixed with steel alloy. Everytime the beak closes and opens, the sides scrape against each other, sharpening it. " You stick a probe down the brood lord's throat. The camera on the probe transmits the feed onto a computer screen. "Ovipositor is intact, but it has atrophied due to no use for at least 50 years." Olivia rapidly writes down notes on a dataslate. "Hold on, I'm detecting something organic in the stomach. It's not human. Moving to open the stomach." You operate the table's surgical tools and cut open the abdomen. A thick, purple ichor oozes out of the wound. It smells unpleasant. "Alright, I've got a visual on whatever this thing is." One of the surgical arms reaches in and pulls out whatever is in there. The mass is disgusting. It's covered in half-digested brown fur. Two arms flop from it. When It's fully out, a rat-shaped head flops on a limp neck. "Is that a goddamn skaven?" Olivia asks. "It would appear to be so. Or at least, part of one." You say. "So the skaven are on whatever planet this thing was captured?" She asks. "I suppose. I've heard that they've been popping up on quite a few planets. In fact, I think that the Tau have lost several planets to the skaven. They forged an alliance with the skaven and the skaven did what they do best; they stabbed the tau in the back and overran them." You grab the skaven and put it in a metal tray. The neck of the thing has been broken and you see that it was bitten in half at the waist. How the brood lord managed to fit half a skaven in his mouth, you have no idea. You go back to the brood lord and continue dissection. It's a fairly routine dissection. 

You then move on to one of the other crates and pry it open. Inside is a third generation hybrid. Olivia sighs. "It looks...like a normal person." She says quietly. "That's the whole point. They're meant to blend into society. But this thing isn't a human. It's a xeno." You place it on another dissection table and begin working on it. The blood of the hybrid is reddish purple colored. But It's nothing you haven't seen before. And that can be said for the rest of the specimens. The brood lord was the only slightly unique specimen. But It's still good to document their anatomy. It takes you seven hours to dissect all of them. 

After dissecting all of the specimens and documenting their anatomy, you have the servitors carry the corpses to the station's incinerator. Except for the broodlord. You've decided to keep that one preserved. You walk over to the station's sink and begin to heavily clean your arms. "So, I have a question to ask you." Olivia asks. "Go ahead." You say, more focused on scrubbing the tyranid blood from your hands and arms than what she's saying. "S-since we're now actually dating, could I sleep n-next to you?" "Of course. Why do you have to ask? We've slept with each forty three times at this point." You say bluntly. "N-not like that. I meant sleeping next to you in a non s-sexual way. Like just sl-sleeping in the same bed." She says quietly. You turn around to look at her. She's blushing. You find that amusing and cute at the same time. She's fucked you in the ass 10 times with a vibrating strap-on along with countless other sexual acts, but the thought of sleeping next to you makes her blush. You smile and gently rub the top of her head. "Of course. Of course."

Later, you and Olivia get into your bed. It's nice sleeping with someone normally and not after furiously fucking them. You drift off to sleep.

Sometime later, you're jostled awake by something bumping into you. You try to go back to sleep. But then it hits you in the back. You grunt in annoyance, now fully awake. You sit up to see what hit you. There's only you and Olivia in this room. Something bumps into your leg. You realize what it is. She's twitching her arms and legs in her sleep. Which then bumps into you. "Oh my god." You whisper tiredly. You lie back down and just shut off the part of your brain that processes touch. The sudden loss of sensation actually helps you drift back off to sleep. It allows you to concentrate on sleep. 

(Olivia's POV)  
You wake up feeling slightly chilly. You realize that Mireille has dragged most of the covers over her. You drag them back so it covers you. But as you try to fall asleep again, you feel the covers being dragged back by her. You pull them back but the process repeats. The third time she does this, you yank the covers to your side and sternly say "Share damn it." You make sure that the covers are being weighed down by your body weight. She doesn't try to drag them away after that. You fall asleep again.


	35. Chapter 35

Chapter 35 (Olivia's POV)  
You wake up next to Mireille. She's awake and reading a book. "Are you awake?" She asks as a response to your sudden movement. "Not really.." You say groggily. "How'd you sleep?" She asks gently. "Pretty good. Aside from the time that I had to get the covers back from you." You say while rubbing your eyes. "Well you woke me up because you twitch your limbs while you sleep." She chuckles. ”Guess we’re even then.” You say in embarrassment. Mireille shuts her book and puts it on her nightstand. “Let’s get something to eat before we try and translate the madness that is your and my notes.” 

After eating a decent breakfast, you go back to the laboratory. 

After about two hours of work, sigurdsson enters the laboratory. “Do you need another ripper to test on?” You ask. He shakes his head. “No...were we scheduled to have a shipment of specimens arrive soon?” Mireille shakes her head. “No..why?” “Well, the ship’s sensors have noted two ships entering real space on the other side of the solar system. I tried hailing them, but they didn’t respond. I was wondering if you knew anything about this.” Sigurdsson says. 

“Maybe fenror ordered something for himself and th-this is the shipment.” You say nervously. “But if that’s the case, why two ships? Surely only one ship would be needed for shipping an item.” Sigurdsson says. “Maybe the other sh-ship is asking for an escort?” You ask nervously. “This dataslate has a live video feed from the station’s hull. Maybe you’ll see something I didn’t see.

Sigurdsson tosses her a data slate. Mireille looks at it and you see her face drop. She looks nervous. “No. I have no idea what….Oh My God.” She says with genuine fear in her voice and eyes. She drops the dataslate. “Wake up Fenror NOW. This is an all hands on deck situation.” She grabs a plasma rifle and a power axe. “Wh-what’s going on? M-mireille, wh-what’s going on?” You ask, fear starting to rise in your body. Sigurdsson picks up the dataslate, looks at it and scuttles off very quickly. “We’re going to be attacked. Very soon.” She says gravely. “B-by what?” You say. 

“Drukhari.”


	36. Chapter 36

Chapter 36 (Olivia’s POV)

Drukhari. You remember Mireille talking about them before. But you don’t really know who they are. “So wh-who are the drukhari in th-the first place?” Mirielle shudders. “The Eldar’s fucked up cousins. And that’s saying something, considering that the eldar at best view humanity as primitives and at worst, vermin. The drukhari are so much worse. They literally need to feed on suffering to keep themselves alive. If they find us, the nicest thing they can do to us is slice our fucking necks open. But more likely, they’ll capture us and drag us back to their nightmare city commorragh. There, we’ll either die in a gladiatorial arena, become sex slaves, or be experimented on until we’re not even human anymore. And we’ll be in complete agony the whole time.” She says grimly. “Please tell you you’re lying or exaggerating.” You say, fighting your stutter.

“I’m not. What I just described was the toned down version of what they do to people. The drukhari are a race of the worst rapists, murderers, sadists and psychopaths that the galaxy has to offer outside of chaos. They are pure evil. Pure evil.” She says while checking the power gauge on the plasma rifle. “Fully charged. Good. I’ll need you to grab your laz gun and make sure it has MANY power paks.” You go and grab it from your room. When you get back to mireille, Fenror and Sigurdsson are back. Sigurdsson is holding tons of plasma weaponry and a halberd that has an electrically charged vibrating blade. Fenror is holding a laz rifle, a power axe and a cup of recaff. Mireille tosses you a set of flak armor. You put it on in seconds. Fenror sighs before taking a long drink of recaff. His long tube on his face dips into the caffeine and slurps it up. After finishing his drink, he sets the cup on a dissection table. “Alright, here’s the plan. We will be holding up in my office. It’s the most defendable part of the station. It can seal up tighter than a steel trap. Drukhari raids are fast and brutal. Hopefully, if we stonewall them enough, they’ll lose interest and leave. But if they don’t; be prepared to fight like hell. Dark eldar fight dirty and fight fast. And whatever you do, DON’T GET WITHIN MELEE RANGE. Their melee weapons are designed to cause as much agony as possible. Now let’s get going. We’ve got two hours before they arrive. May the omnissiah save us all."

(Yraqir’s POV)  
The monkeigh’s station hangs fat and still in the orbit of this planet. Fat and ripe for the taking. As your ship gets closer to it, a few pitiful defenses try to shoot the ship. They’re quickly taken out by your guns. Hell, the pleasure barge even participates in the destruction. The pilot pulls up next to the hull of the station and you cut your way through the side. You breathe happily. The inside of the station is sterile and brightly lit. “What did I tell you, Braesthara? There’s a bunch of dumbass monkeighs in the middle of nowhere. Perfect for us.” Braesthara sighs. “Fine. You win. Have a goddamn coin.” He hands you a small bag of coins. “Thank you. Now let’s find some monkeighs. I want to have some fun before we take 'em back to commorragh.” He laughs. “Always thinking with your junk, aren’t you?” He says while unsheathing a sword. You chuckle. “Well if there’s one thing monkeigh women have, it’s nice cunts.” He purses his lips. “Well I’m not into beastiality myself, but to each their own.” You smack him before going to ransack this tin can. 

There’s no one here. What a cop out. You were hoping to see some monkeighs screaming for mercy. But there’s no one here. You walk out of another pointless room to see Braesthara leaning against a wall. “What?” You ask angrily. “Are you sure this place hasn’t been abandoned? The audience must be getting bored. They’re almost as bloodthirsty as Khelkyrss is. She’s probably losing her mind.” You scowl at one of the camera drones deployed by the pleasure barge as it flits around you. You take it out with a swipe of a knife. “Oh come on. Those cost money. That’ll cost you at least twenty human slaves when we get back.” He says smugly. “Shut up. Let’s see if we can find anything of value. If not, I’m leaving.” “Getting sad little brother?” He says while patting your hair. You wheel around and punch him in the face. You HATE when people touch your hair. You spent decades making it look as good as it does. “Touch my fucking hair again and I’ll castrate you!” You say angrily before walking off.

Ten minutes later, you find a much more interesting room. It’s a large, cold workshop filled with what looks like destroyed necron technology. “Now THIS is what I’m talking about. This shit will catch us a pretty bunch of slaves.” You pick up a container of necron reactor fluid. It’s bright yellowish green and vaguely radioactive. Extremely rare and extremely valuable. You pocket it as Braesthara looks at a wall. “There’s something behind this wall. Let’s see what’s here.” He sets a charge and blows up a wall. Inside, there’s a secret chamber. You whistle. “Looks like one of the monkeighs had something to hide.” He says. You smile. "Finally going to get some action." You say happily. Braesthura steps in first. The chamber is dark and lit by dim green lights. "I'm not getting any heat signatures in here." He says. He had heat sensors implanted in his eyes. "Wait, there's something over there. It's weird though. I'm going to check it out." He runs deeper into the chamber. You hear some impact and then the sound of someone falling. "Braesthura? Are you alright?" You suddenly feel nervous and you don't know why. You softly walk towards the direction that Braesthura went. "Okay buddy, if this is a joke, It's in very bad taste." You say nervously. Your foot hits something soft and you look down. To your horror, It's Braesthura. He's dead. A spear juts out of his neck. You turn to start running but are stopped when you notice a figure standing 10 feet in front of you. There's a flash of bright green light and you can't move your body. Your vision starts darkening and you start falling. You realize that you're just a head. Your body is gone. You land on the floor and the figure walks up to you. They're a towering skeletal figure made of metal. The last thing you see is the figure raising their foot and bringing it down on you.


	37. Chapter 37

Chapter 37 (Khelkyrss's POV)

You're bored. Undeniably, immensely bored. You were promised you'd get to slice up some monkeigh, but none have been found. There's some holed up in a sealed room and one of the party is trying to cut through, but it'll take forever. You wander off trying to find a way to blow off steam. You also wonder where Braesthura and Yraqir have gone. You don't particularly like them, but they're still working with you. You wander around for twenty minutes until you see something you weren't expecting. On the floor is another member of the raiding party. She's dead. It looks like her sternum was ripped out and her internal organs were stomped on. You're excited at the prospect of a good fight. You turn and are grabbed by the neck and hoisted into the air. You stab the attacker in the arm with one of your knives but it just glances off. The grip on your throat is cold and metallic. The thing that has grabbed you is 9 ½ feet tall. It's made out of black metal and looks like a skeleton. It's a necron. 

"Pathetic. Just pathetic." They say. Their voice is calm and angry. "What?" You choke out. "Your race. It's pathetic. The last time I fought your kind, they were about to become the dominant power in the galaxy. Look at you now. Your race is either primitive savages living on feral worlds, warriors that are deluding themselves into believing that they aren't doomed to extinction or degenerate sadists that have to cause pain to survive. It's pathetic. Now…" They tighten their grip around your throat. "How many drukhari are on this station? I've already killed three, but there has to be more." "I'm not telling you anything." You wheeze out. They grab your legs and snap your femurs. Agony shoots through your body. "How many? It's a simple question. And I will have my answer. How many bones I have to break is up to you." You spit in their face. It's a mixture of saliva and blood. "You're just going to try to kill us anyway. So there's no reason for me to tell you shit, necron." The grip on your throat loosens. "You have a point. This conversation is over." They pull their free arm back before jutting it forward into your abdomen. You feel them grab something in there and twisting before tearing it out. It looks like part of your spine. You gurgle out in agony before she drops you. "Pathetic." You hear her muttering before you die. 

(Olivia's POV)  
You've been holed up in Fenror's office for five hours now. All of you are pointing weapons at the door. There was an attempt by the drukhari to cut through the door, but it stopped 2 hours ago. There was some sort of commotion outside the door 2 hours ago. Fenror silently signals that he's going to open the door. You tighten your grip on your laz rifle as the door slides open. A male dark eldar stumbles in. "Wait!" He pleads. He coughs up blood. "Don't shoot me. Please." He begs. He looks to be in terrible shape. One of his ears has been torn off. His armor looks like it is partially melted. The exposed skin on his right side has third degree burns. "Why shouldn't we kill you?" Fenror demands. "I'm the only one left. Everyone else has been hunted down and killed." "B-by what?" You ask nervously. "It was a necr…" 

His words turn into a pained squeak as a blade suddenly protrudes from his chest. It passes through him and stops. It's some sort of spear. The metal of the spear is onyx black with glowing green runes engraved on it. He is lifted a few feet off the ground by whoever is holding the spear. "Pathetic." Says whoever is holding the spear. The spear is pulled out by whoever is holding it and the corpse of the eldar slumps to the floor. In the dark, you see two bright green dots and a bright green patch three feet underneath it. 

“Show yourself.” Fenror says with genuine fear in his voice. “Are you sure about that?” Asks the figure. Their voice is mechanical and alien. “Show yourself.” Fenror says more firmly. “As you wish.” The being walks towards you. You hear metal clanking as the figure walks. The figure grabs the top of the doorframe. That gives you a terrifying glimpse at how tall this thing is. That door frame is eight feet tall. And this thing has to noticeably bend down to fit through. The thing then enters the room. You involuntarily gasp at the figure. The figure is huge. They’re 9 and a half feet tall. They appear even taller due to the long, conical headdress they wear. Their body is made out of onyx black metal. But it’s not like a servitor. It’s a skeletal figure. They glow from the inside with that sickly green light that you saw in Sigurdsson's workshop. Their face looks like a skull. It’s decorated with gold inlays and engravings. A long semi-transparent cape drapes on behind them. You realize that you’re looking at a living member of the necron race.


	38. Chapter 38

Chapter 38 (Mireille’s POV)  
The necron is holding a large halberd/spear. One of their arms and part of their body is spattered with blood and gore. They look around before leaning the spear against the wall. They cross their arms. “Are we going to say anything, or are we just going to stand here?” The necron says. Their voice is strangely feminine. They also sound bored. “Wha...wh..how…” Fenror mutters out before sinking into a chair. “Do you need a glass of water or something like that? I know most humans need things like that to survive.” The necron says. “What are you doing here? Why are you here? Were you passing by and just decided you felt like you wanted to kill drukhari today?” You ask. 

The necron turns their head to face you directly. "No. The drukhari intruded on my chambers and I got rather irritated at that intrusion." "Your chambers?" Fenror asks the necron. "Yes. This station is my home as well as mine." The necron says while looking at their spear. They absentmindedly flick gore off of the spear. Everyone looks at sigurdsson. He shrugs nervously. The look fenror gives him could melt glass. "After killing the first two drukhari, I decided to get rid of the rest. It was pathetically easy if I'll be honest. But I noticed that this station is still being orbited by a pleasure barge. If no-one minds, I'm going to deal with that." They bend down and walk away. Once they're out of earshot, fenror lunges at sigurdsson. It takes the combined effort of you and Olivia from stabbing him in the neck. "HERETIC!!" He yells at sigurdsson. Sigurdsson takes several steps back. "How long have you been harboring that thing? How long?!" He demands angrily. "45 years. And her name is Djarra." Sigurdsson says calmly. "I don't give a good GODDAMN what that thing's name is. The important thing here is that you're a fucking HERETIC!" He says. 

"Yes. I am. I'm sorry fenror." Sigurdsson says sadly. Fenror manages to untangle himself from your grip and stands still. He's shaking with rage. "Well. That doesn't fucking cut it, now does it? And It's not like I can get the inquisition involved in this. We've already had an incident with chaos. So this will mean a death sentence for ALL of us if they ever find out about that thing. Know this, you're dead to me." Fenror storms out of the room. 

Sigurdsson splays his legs and falls to the floor. He covers his face with his hands and sighs. "You really fucked up here." You say. "I know. I know. I know." "W-was your comments about Mireille fucking tyranids projection since you were h-hiding a n-necron?" Olivia asks nervously. "Yes. Now please, let me wallow in my own self misery."   
You and Olivia leave him alone.


	39. Chapter 39

Chapter 39  
(Djarra's POV)  
You step out onto the hull of the station. You see the pleasure barge circling the station. It's a hideous looking thing. With sails for some fucking reason. The attack cruiser is attached to the station via an umbilical. You shoot the umbilical with your gauss flayer and kick the ship away. It drifts away drunkenly and collides with an asteroid. The explosion is aesthetically pleasing to you. Now there's just the pleasure barge to deal with. You just don’t have any idea how you’re going to do that. 

(Oristra’s POV)  
You’re bored again. When you decided to join in on this little cruise, you were promised to see some monkeigh get chopped into bits. That didn’t happen. Instead, the raiding party was massacred by a necron. Which admittedly was rather amusing to watch. But it’s been twenty minutes since the last raider was killed, so you’re very fucking bored. You take a puff on your hookah and feel the narcotics pump through your lungs. It’s not nearly strong enough for your liking. This is some weak shit. You look out the window and see something that definitely piques your interest. Walking on the hull of the station is the necron. “Everyone! Look at this shit!” 4 others crowd around the window. “What do you think they’re doing?” Someone says. “Probably trying to find a way to destroy us.” You say. “I’ll bet you 50 tau slaves they’ll die before they get to do that.” Someone says. “You’re on.” You see 14 hellions disembark from the barge and fly towards the necron. 

(Djarra’s POV)  
You have an idea. There’s a disabled defense cannon about 45 meters away from you. You have a gauss flayer. You’re planning on taking apart the cannon, plugging the power source of the gauss flayer into it and firing it at the pleasure barge. Suddenly, a laser hits you in the shoulder, blowing open a hole in your necrodermis. It quickly heals. You look up and see 14 drukhari hellions flying through space and firing at you. You dodge several shots but take a few to the legs. “Absolute bastards.” You think to yourself. The pleasure barge also starts firing at you. You start moving towards the cannon. If you don’t get to that cannon, both you and the station are doomed. 

(Olivia’s POV)  
The station rocks from an impact. “What the hell is going on?” Olivia says. Sigurdsson comes running up to you. “We have a major problem.” He hands the two of you a dataslate with a live camera feed. Djarra is on the camera feed. She’s being shot at by the pleasure barge and drukhari on crescent shaped boards. “I don’t know what she’s planning, but I know that she’s not going to make it without my help. She needs to focus on whatever she’s doing while I’ll deal with the drukhari. But I’m not sure that I’ll be enough.” “So you want us to help you and your girlfriend accomplish whatever she’s trying to do.” Mireille says. “Yes. But I’m also trying to save this station. Even if they miss her, the station’s going to be fucked if we don’t help her. And I’m pretty sure fenror is never going to talk to me again so I need your help with this.” Mireille nods her head. “Alright. We’ll help. Just need to get a spacesuit on Olivia.”

(Djarra’s POV)  
This is not going well. You’ve been shot about twenty times by now. Your necrodermis is doing it’s hardest to heal you, but it’s starting to not be able to keep up. The hellions sweep around for another pass. You try to move but your left knee is crippled. You realize that you’ll be shot full of holes before your knee will heel. You groan and prepare to take critical damage when the head hellion pilot is struck in the chest. He slumps over and collides with two other hellions, consuming them in a fiery, silent explosion. The other hellions break away. You look behind you to see Sigurdsson, Olivia and Mireille. Olivia is wearing a space suit shaped for combat while Mirielle just has a respirator. Olivia is holding a still smoking laz rifle. Mirielle is holding two plasma pistols. “We’re here to help you do whatever the fuck it is that you’re planning.” Mireille says while giving you a thumbs up. Your knee heals, letting you be able to move again. “Right. Cover me while I work on the cannon.” Olivia nods her head and shoots another hellion, blowing the pilot’s head off. The dead hellion crashes into the wreckage from the attack craft. You and Sigurdsson scramble over to the cannon. You rip open the components and Sigurdsson takes the gauss flayer apart. A hellion crashes into the station 5 meters away from the two of you. It sends shrapnel flying towards you. You block it from hitting sigurdsson. A piece of it lodges itself in your eye. “What the fuck are you two doing?!” Sigurdsson yells at them. “S-sorry! I c-can’t control where they g-go when they die.” Olivia says while firing at another hellion. “Look. These guy’s aim is getting way too close for comfort. So if you could hurry the fuck up before we’re all dead, that would be fan fucking tastic.” Mireille says, blowing the legs off of a hellion pilot. The pilot drifts through the void, their blood beginning to freeze. You install the power core and Sigurdsson welds the wires together. The barrel of the gun begins to glow green. “EVERYONE DOWN!” All of you duck as the cannon fires. A giant beam of energy shoots out of the cannon and into the void. The beam destroys the pleasure barge, breaking it in two. You see charred drukhari corpses floating lifelessly through space. There’s only 8 hellions left. Sigurdsson pulls out 4 laser pistols and you pull out a tesla pistol. You aim at a hellion and fire. A bolt of blue electricity shoots out towards the pilot. It wraps around the pilot, electrocuting her. You watch as her flesh chars and her armor starts to melt. It’s immensely satisfying. Sigurdsson manages to take out 4 of them and the others take out two. There’s one left. You pick up a long shard of wreckage and aim it at the hellion pilot. Once you’ve got your eye in, you throw it at them. The shard flies through the void and impales them through the chest. They slump over and the hellion drunkenly floats through the void. "Are we good? Are they all dead?" Mireille asks. "It would appear to be so." You say calmly. "Good. Let's get back inside the station."


	40. Chapter 40

Chapter 40 (Olivia's POV)  
Once you're back inside the station, you take off the space suit with Mireille's help. The two of you walk over to the dining area. Sigurdsson is sitting at a table while Djarra is standing next to him. Now that your adrenaline rush is going away, you realize just how fucking massive she is. She towers over everyone. If she and a space marine were in the same room, she'd be able to rest her arm on the space marine's head. Her headdress is a foot in length and decorated with jewelry. She's also wearing a necklace made out of gold bands with jewelry implanted in it. The jewels in her headdress and necklace are beautiful. You can assume that they are extremely high quality gems. The gems are blue, green and red. Her cape is green in color but it doesn't look like fabric. It looks like It's somehow made of metal. She's covering the eye that was destroyed due to shrapnel. 

"S-sorry." You stammer out nervously, hoping she isn't about to decapitate you. She turns her head to face you. "About what?" She asks calmly. "Y-your eye. I'm sorry that I indirectly g-gouged it out." "It's fine." She says, putting her arm to her side. Her eye is completely fine now. "How did you do that?" You ask. She makes a noise that could be a chuckle. It's hard to tell with her. "The metal that makes up my body is self repairing. As long as we don't take catastrophic damage, my people can recover from most wounds." Mireille looks up at her and sits at the opposite side of sigurdsson. “So..how exactly did you two end up? Cause you’re obviously some high ranking necron, considering you aren’t a mindless automaton.” Djarra taps her fingers on the table. “We met about 60 years ago. I was part of a cohort who were tasked to explore a tomb complex. Things were going fine until one of the members of the cohort tried to murder me.” “I wonder why.” You hear Mireille mutter sarcastically. “Shut up. Anyway, I was stabbed in the back of the neck and thrown from a ledge. I fell at least 300 feet before crashing down. But because I was already mostly metal at that point, I survived. And after wandering for a while, I came across djarra.” Djarra makes a noise of approval. “Yes. And he was the first living being I had seen in 2000 years.” “Why?” You ask. Djarra sighs. “There was an..issue with the great sleep. The rest of the tomb complex was supposed to wake up before me. But that..didn’t happen.” She pauses for a moment and Sigurdsson puts a comforting hand on her leg. “Instead, the master program controlling the tomb suffered a catastrophic glitch and deleted the consciousnesses of everyone but me and then awoke me. I was expecting my subjects to greet me, but there was nobody else there. I contacted the master program and learned of the catastrophe. I spent 2000 years alone in a dead tomb surrounded by subjects that would never wake up. A monument to my failures…” She dips her head slightly. Even though her face doesn’t show emotion, it’s obvious from her body language and tone of voice that this genuinely hurt her. “I’m..sorry.” Mireille says. “So after being alone for 2000 years, I slightly emotionally latched onto sigurdsson and promised that I would get him back to his cohort so he could get revenge on the person who tried to kill him.” Sigurdsson chuckles. “And then the master program noticed intruders and it started panicking so it decided to upload itself into the husks of the necrons.” “Yes. It tried to become an AI controlled dynasty. Which is dangerous for both my and your race. It’s dangerous for yours for obvious reasons and It’s dangerous for mine because they’d try to infect other dynasties with the AI. Which we view as an abomination.” She says. “So we had to team up to destroy the master program to keep it from waking everything up. We managed to put an axe through it, which shut down the tomb permanently." Sigurdsson says. There’s an exaggerated slurping noise from the doorway of the room. You turn to see fenror standing there, holding a cup of recaff to his face tube. He slurps up the recaff while staring at Sigurdsson and Djarra. “Fascinating.” He says icily. He walks into the room but stops when he’s ten feet away from djarra and Sigurdsson. He sips from his cup again before walking away. “Oh man. He’s pissed at you two.” Mireille says. “Not surprising, considering Sigurdsson has committed an act of serious ‘heresy’ and I’m a necron. Your imperium doesn’t really accept other sentient species. Which is one of it’s biggest flaws.” Djarra says. “I didn’t know that necrons have such an inclusive view of other races.” You say. “Well our ultimate goal is to rule over every species in the galaxy. So if every race is dead, then we have no subjects to rule over.” 

“It was almost sweet for a second. And then she went there.” You think to yourself. She puts the spear on the table. “Alright. Here’s the plan. Since everyone on this station knows of my existence, I don't want to be bound to my chambers. I wish to be allowed to walk around the station as I please." Djarra says. "We don't really have a choice in this matter, do we?" Mireille asks. Djarra chuckles coldly. "Well, unless you so desire to be torn apart at the molecular level or have a spear put through your gut, you'll agree to this deal." "You could've just said no." Mireille says. "I just wanted to make myself crystal clear. Do we have an understanding?" Djarra asks with a hint of mirth in her voice. "Yes. And before you ask, we accept your deal." Mireille says. Djarra softly and sarcastically claps her hands. "Intelligent move madam Olivia." She says before walking off. Once she’s out of earshot, Mirielle scoffs. “I see why you fell for her, Sigurdsson.” Mirielle says. “And why is that, exactly?” Mireille shrugs. “She’s a smug jackass. Just like you! You’re practically soulmates!” “She doesn’t have a soul. But I suppose the analogy is accurate.”


	41. Popcorn.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> popcorn

Chapter 41 (Olivia’s POV)  
The next few weeks are spent dealing with the fact that a very powerful being is now wandering the station and can pop in at any time. And also trying not to piss off that being because she could disintegrate you in a matter of seconds. Or rip you open like a bag of popcorn. You’re kneeling in front of G-45’s enclosure while taking notes. He’s playing with discarded drukhari bones and armor. If he weren’t a hostile predatory insect, he’d be cute. “What are you doing?” Asks a frightening, mechanical voice. You tense up and turn to see Djarra standing behind you. She’s holding her spear again, with the end of the shaft resting on the floor. The spear hums softly with arcane energy. “Oh hi there. I w-was just..just..writing down observations about G-45.” You say nervously. She eyes G-45 and he stops gnawing on a skull for a few seconds before slipping into a hole. “If you w-want to ask, no. I d-don’t know why we have a pit. I was told it came w-with the station.” “I know that you stutter when you are nervous. But why are you nervous?” “Sorry miss djarra. I-it’s just that you tend to make me nervous.” “Why?” She says bluntly. “B-because you could rip in open like a bag of p-popcorn.” “What?” She asks. “Well, you're a necron. You could tear me in half very easily.” She puts up a hand. “Yes. Yes. I understand that. It wouldn’t be very difficult But what is ‘popcorn’? I don’t know what that is.” 

"Oh. It's a snack. It's corn kernels that are heated up and they pop into a bigger version of them." Djarra makes an intrigued noise. “I wish to see this. Would you show an example of this?” She asks politely. You’re pretty sure you don’t have a choice in this matter. “S-sure.” She gestures with her hand. “Lead the way.” 

You lead her to the dining area and find a bag of popcorn. You remove it from the plastic and put it in the microwave. You set it for popcorn and turn it on. She kneels to get a better view. When the first kernel pops, she recoils slightly before focusing more intently on it. It’s funny, in a weird way. This immensely powerful, immensely ancient machine is fascinated by a bag of popcorn. When the microwave is done, she opens it up and takes the popcorn out. She then opens it and makes a noise of understanding. “Expansion due to heat. I see.” “Are you going to eat it? C-can you even eat food?” “No.” She offers it to you. “I’m not hungry, miss Djarra. I h-had a p-pretty big breakfast.” She then walks towards G-45’s enclosure. G-45 is lying on the floor, nonchalantly gnawing at a piece of rotten meat. He notices djarra approaching his enclosure and glances up at her. Djarra kneels and then sprinkles the popcorn around him. G-45 sniffs it before hissing in displeasure and burying it underneath some of the dirt in his habitat. Djarra chuckles once. “Guess he doesn’t enjoy popcorn.” She says with amusement. “Wh-why would he? Tyranids only eat meat. W-well, they also eat plants to collect b-biomass when they’re consuming planets. But that’s more the task of rippers. Normal hormagaunts like him would only eat meat.” 

Djarra looks at you. “Did you learn that from mireille?” “Yes.” You say sheepishly. “There’s no need to be ashamed of that.” She says while getting up, using her spear as support. “I myself have learned many interesting things about their race from her. Which I’m glad to know.” “Really?” “Yes. The tyranids were not an entity in the galaxy when my people went to sleep, 60 million years ago. Back then, there were only the eldar and the orkz. And back then, they were called the krorks.” “Really? Why did the name change?” You ask. “Well, believe it or not, the krorks were actually very intelligent. But since they were designed to fight my kind and we went to sleep for millions of years, they didn’t have the stimulation needed to keep them intelligent. And so, over millions of years, they devolved into the idiots we know them to be today. Doesn’t mean they aren’t dangerous, as you know from personal experience.” You shudder at the memory. You still see that orkz face in your nightmares sometimes. “I honestly like tyranids.” Djarra says suddenly. “R-really?” You ask. “Yes. In the way that you might admire a well built horse. They’re the perfect organism. Built for the sole purpose of killing and having no qualms about it. I admire the purity of it all. It’s simplicity at its best. And all completely organic. Much more elegant than the idiocy of orkz.” G-45 glances up before going back to gnawing on his flesh chunk. "Another reason I like tyranids is because they don't pose a threat to my people." "Really?" You ask. She nods. "They actively avoid my people. Which makes sense. They need biomass to make more tyranids. And obviously, my people have no biomass to offer them." She then stiffens and hangs her head. "Not for a long time." You think she mutters. "Um...s-sorry if this comes off as r-rude, but how did your p-people come to be? Did you destroy the people who built you?" She turns her entire body to face you directly. You recoil in fear. "No." Sign says with venom in her voice. "And if you're intelligent, you won't press that question any further. Understand?" She asks while gripping her spear tightly. You nod your head rapidly. "Yep. Mhm." You squeak out. "Good." She says icily. She loosens the grip on her spear. "Now that unpleasantness is over, I will head to the station's library. I wish to see what this place has in terms of literature. You can come if you want to." "I'd l-love to, but I need to report b-back to Mireille with my observations about G-45." She walks away. You walk back to Mirielle’s laboratory. While walking, you keep glancing back to make sure djarra isn’t standing behind you. When you get to Mireille’s lab, you shut the door behind you and sigh in relief. “You okay?” Mireille asks. You nod your head. “You look terrible.” Mireille says. “I might have angered djarra.” Mireille shudders. “That’s a frightening prospect.” She says. “I know. I thought she was going to rip my spine out.” “I’ve had a few moments like that. Where she gets..serious. You know what I’m talking about.” “Th-the 180 degree turn where she stares into your soul? And the grip on her spear gets uncomfortably tight?” You ask. “Oh yeah. It makes your entire life flash before your eyes and you think you’re about to have a spear put through your face.” She says nonchalantly. “Why are you so calm about that?” You ask. She looks up from the tyranid she’s examining. “I’m regrettably starting to get used to having my life in danger. Since I’ve met you; we’ve been attacked by skaven; had to save Sigurddson from a nurgle cult infested planet and then had to worry about drukhari. So a necron lord getting a little miffed is honestly not the most frightening thing in my humble opinion. Besides, if she wanted to kill us, I’m pretty sure she wouldn’t warn us. She’d just put the spear through someone’s head.” “That’s not at all r-reassuring.” You say. Mireille shrugs. “There’s probably never going to be a moment that she isn’t slightly terrifying. She’s a necron lord, after all.”


	42. Chapter 42

Chapter 42 (Fenror's POV)  
The past five weeks have been unpleasant for you, to say the least. You avoid them as much as possible, but you can't get Sigurdsson and Djarra out of your mind. The fact that he was harboring that thing in YOUR station for almost half a century pisses you off so fucking much. You're in your office restudying a piece of eldar writing to try to take your mind off of Djarra. And maybe, you'll see something new in this writing. But alas, nothing. You learn nothing new from this writing. All it says is that the second greatest threat to the eldar are the..necrons. You tear it in half, crumple it into a ball and throw it into a corner. You sigh angrily and take another swig of recaff. It's not good recaff. It's overly bitter and there's a chemical aftertaste. And there's not nearly enough caffeine in it for your tired body. You want to go to sleep, but you can't. Djarra living on your station angers you so much, it interferes with your sleep. Even with chemical assistance, you can't sleep. And there's only so much energy recaff will restore. You lean back in your chair and close your eyes. Maybe, through some miracle, you might be able to get some sleep. But probably not. 

After three hours of pointless effort, the speaker box on your desk buzzes. You groan and press the answer button down. You groan. "What?" You ask in annoyance. "Oh come on, Fenror. That's no way to talk to an old friend." You perk up when you realize who's talking. "Simian?" You ask happily. Simian chuckles. "I think so. Maybe I'm someone else, but I'm pretty sure I'm still Simian King." You chuckle. “You have no idea how happy I am to see you.” Simian chuckles again. “Well, you sound slightly completely defeated. So you probably need a visit.” “Yes. When are you coming to visit.” “I’ll be there in about two weeks. Make sure you don’t invite sigurdsson. He’s a massive pain in the ass to deal with.” You smirk. “I wasn’t planning on inviting him in the first place." "I'll see you in two weeks." Simian says before signing off. You lean back in your chair and smile. For the first time in five weeks, you're happy. 

(Mireille's POV)  
Fenror's been acting weird for the last two weeks. He's far too jovial for your liking. He always acts like this whenever Simian is about to arrive or is on the station. Normally, he's far more subdued than this. It makes you wonder if Fenror secretly has feelings for Simian. But you aren't sure. He's also been rather nasty towards Sigurdsson and Djarra recently. Before, his attitude towards them was indignant avoidance. But recently, It's become far more passive aggressive and in some cases, outright hostile. You think that's not a wise idea. You don't know how powerful Djarra is, but she obviously could shatter Fenror's skull if she wanted to. And from what you know of her temperament, she doesn't take insults lightly or possess a particularly warm personality. You think that he ought to cut it out or the servitors will have to scrape him off the floor. 

As for Simian himself, you don't really know what to think. He seems fine. But since he's a rogue trader, you automatically have a healthy level of distrust towards him. Rogue traders don't become successful by being law abiding people. There's been more than one rogue trader that's been executed for associating with Xenos or even worse; Chaos.

(Olivia's POV)  
It's the day of Simian's arrival. Fenror is practically giddy. It's somewhat unnerving to watch. You, Mireille, and Fenror are waiting at the airlock while Simian's ship docks with the station. There's a thump as it does. A few minutes later, the airlock door opens. Standing in the doorway is what you assume to be Simian. He's five feet 9 inches tall. He has a pale complexion with long, silvery hair. His eyes are bright blue. He's wearing a dark purple dress coat, black shirt, grey pants, and black shoes. He has a long walking cane in one hand. He and Fenror embrace. "It's good to see you Fenror." Simian says. "It's been far too long." Fenror says happily. It almost looks like they're about to kiss. But instead, they disengage and Simian turns to face you and Olivia directly. "Lovely as always, Mireille." He says while bowing. He then turns to face you. "And I imagine that you're Olivia Medine. "Y-yes." You say. He smiles. "Oh come on now. No need to be so shy. We're all friends here." Fenror chuckles.

Later, all of you are in the dining area. Fenror's put actual high quality food on the table. There's roast turkey, green beans, dinner rolls mashed potatoes, corn, cranberries, sweet potatoes and pumpkin pie. It's like Fenror's take on the traditional harvest feast back on your home planet. Mireille skipped most of the meat and is devouring green beans, corn and cranberries. "I haven't had actual vegetables in years.'' she says quietly to you. "I actually like the vegetable paste." You say. Simian laughs. "I mean, It's fine. But it pales to actual vegetables. Especially after a couple decades." He shovels a forkful of Turkey into his mouth. "This Turkey's delicious." He says with a mouthful of meat. "So how do you and Fenror know each other?" You ask. Simian takes a sip of wine. "Oh we've known each other for like two centuries at this point. I got him some STCs and that's how it started." He says in between sips of wine.   
The next two hours are spent talking to Fenror and Simian. And enduring them going on and on about the old days. After a while, the food ceases to look or taste appetizing at all. It's borderline disgusting how much food Simian eats. He can't weigh more than 170 pounds and he's eaten at least 10 pounds of food. "Oh man, I almost forgot." He pulls out a blue bottle. "What's that?" Mireille asks cautiously. "Eilderflower liqueur. It's made from fermented Eilderflowers, which are only found on one planet. So it's pretty pricey. This size of bottle can go for 100,000 thrones in the right sectors." Fenror whistles in amazement. "And you're just giving it to us?" Simian grins evilly. "Only the best for my friends." He opens the bottle and pours each of you a glass. All of you take it. "A toast. To friends and for the emperor!" Fenror says. While toasting, you think you see Simian muttering something under his breath. The liquor is sickly sweet and has a faint chalky aftertaste. It's also very strong. Fenror coughs. "Jeez. I don't know why planetary governors like this shit, It's honestly really ter…" Everything starts going dark and you feel your body going limp.

(Mireille's POV)  
"Wake up." Says a faint voice. "Mhmm." You groan out. "Wake up, you organic idiot! Wake up or you'll probably die!" You open your eyes. Djarra is holding you by the robe. Your head feels foggy and you have a splitting headache. Sigurdsson is shaking Olivia awake. The room is in complete disarray. All of the tables and chairs in the room have been knocked over and crammed in the doorways to form crude barricades. The remains of last night's dinner are strewn across the floor. But you don't see Fenror or Simian. "What's going on?" Olivia asks groggily. "We don't entirely know. But the situation has rapidly gone from bad to worse." Sigurdsson says while handing Olivia her laz rifle. "Where's Fenror?" You ask. "We don't know. We think that your guest from last night kidnapped him." You fully stand up. "What?" You demand in shock. Sigurdsson nervously charges a plasma rifle and a flamethrower. "Yeah. We think Simian kidnapped him. He also left at least fifteen unpleasant surprises on the station." He says. "What k-kind of surprises?" Olivia asks nervously. She's answered when something leaps over one of the barricades and into the dining area. It's quickly put down by Djarra throwing her spear straight through its chest. It lands with a thud. You get a good look at it and shudder.

The creature is humanoid in shape. It's about 6 feet tall. It has bright pink skin with tattoos and piercings all over it. It stood on two bird-like legs. It has four grey, curled horns sprouting out of its head. One of its hands looks like a human's, the other arm ends in a large scorpion-like claw. A long black tongue lolls out of the mouth of the creature. The mouth of the creature is filled with needle-like teeth. The body of the creature has both Male and Female features. It has breasts and seems to have a penis. The breasts are covered by a silvery metal bra and the penis is covered by a grey loincloth. You realize what this thing is.  
This is a daemonette of slaanesh.


	43. Chapter 43

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> .

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Daemonettes. Daemonettes everywhere

Chapter 43 (Olivia’s POV)

This is the first time in your relatively short life that you’ve ever fought daemonettes. But you are not enjoying it at all. These daemonettes are somehow, more terrifying than the plague marines you encountered. For one, they’re extremely fast. So fast, they’re almost too fast to see. They also seem to be really enjoying fighting and dying. And not in the ork way. They seem to be sexually excited by fighting. Thankfully, they’re extremely easy to kill. They’re about as durable as an unarmored human. You blow the head off of one when it tries to leap over the barricade. But while you’re distracted by the one you killed, another one leaps onto you from behind. It clings to your back and clamps a claw around your throat. You feel the serrated edge of its claw starting to cut into the skin of your neck and you begin to wheeze as it cuts off air supply. The daemonette giggles evilly and licks your cheek. Their tongue feels like sandpaper mixed with glass. “That’s right. Squeal for me, my pet..” Their sentence turns into a high pitched combination of a scream and a moan of pleasure as Mirielle rips off their claw with her bare hands. With the claw no longer choking you, you have the strength to throw the daemonette off of you. It hits the floor with a thud before Mirielle stomps its head in. The body curls and twitches before going still. Another daemonette tries to leap onto Mirielle but is stopped by Djarra grabbing them in midair and then tearing them in half.

After that, the stream of daemonettes stops, leaving all of you standing there. All of your injuries are minor. But as per usual, one of Sigurdsson’s eyes has been gouged out. Djarra kneels down and wrenches something off of one of the daemonette’s horns. She holds it to the light. It’s a round, black gem with streaks of dark purple in it. “Beautiful.” You hear her mutter. It actually is a very beautiful gem, but it’s also unnerving to look at. But maybe that’s because it came from the horns of a daemon. She stands up before putting it inside her ribcage. Mirielle lets out a heavy breath. “Alright, this probably isn’t all of them. We’ll need to sweep the station top to bottom. Every square foot needs to be checked.” She says. “We’ll be staying together, correct? Because even if daemonettes aren’t very strong, the only one of us that wouldn’t be at risk of horrible death if they had to fight one on one is Djarra.” Sigurdsson says. Mireille nods. “Yes. All of us are staying in one group. I’m not risking groups of two. She grips her plasm pistols and sighs. “Welp. Yeehaw chucklefucks.’ She says sarcastically.

The next few hours are spent in tense silence as all of you scour the station looking for any remaining daemonettes. But worryingly enough, you don’t find any. You find evidence of them alright. There’s scratch marks, footprints, and spilled..bright pink powder all over the place. Sigurdsson kneels to closely examine a pile. He runs it through his fingers before brushing it off on the hem of his robe. “Narcotics. It’s a mixture of potent amphetamines, gunpowder and ground up glass.” He says with disgust in his voice. Later, you come across a wrecked servitor. The flesh has been stripped from their body and the mechanical parts are sparking. They’re lying in a pool of what you hope to god is glue. But it’s almost definitely not glue. Sigurdsson torches the whole thing with his new flame thrower attachment. The fire burns orange and purple. It reeks of..something really awful. 

Meanwhile, Djarra seems to be more focused on the gem that she ripped out of the daemonette’s horn. She keeps holding it up to the light and turning it in her hands. “Why are you so focused on that goddamn gem?” Mireille says. Djarra scoffs. “I enjoy gems. Especially rare or unusual gems. And this is definitely a rare and unusual gem. Not normally found in the material realm.” She sounds almost smug talking about this gem. 

Eventually, all four of you enter the library. There’s something in here. You can hear labored, excited breathing. Mirielle cocks her guns and grimaces. “Alright, warp-thot. Come on out.” She says with annoyance. Suddenly, the creature slinks out of the shadows. It’s not in good shape. One of their eyes has been gouged out. One of their claws has been torn in half lengthwise. Fluorescent pink blood drips out of the wounds. A good portion of their skin has third degree burns. It cackles with demented glee. “Well, well well. Look what just crawled in.” The voice of the daemonette is high pitched and sounds like nails on a chalkboard. “You look awful.” Djarra says. The daemonette snarls. “And who’s fault is that? Who uses a flamethrower indoors?” “It was effective.” Sigurdsson mutters. Mirielle pistol whips the daemonette across the face before grabbing them by the horns and throwing them against the ground. The daemonette moans in a combination of pleasure and pain. “WHERE IS FENROR?!” Mirielle demands while kicking the daemonette in the ribs. The daemonette cackles before spitting a mouthful of blood onto the floor. “With master Simian.” Djarra scoffs. “Obviously. But why did he take simian?” She asks while pressing her spear’s tip against the skin of the daemonette’s neck. The creature smiles. “He’s needed for Simian’s ritual of ascension.” Mirielle tightens the grip on her pistols. “He’s planning on sacrificing Fenror so he can become a daemon?” The daemonette nods her head. “And it shall be GLORIOUS!” The daemonette screeches before breaking out into maniacal laughter. Mirielle scoffs and puts her pistols in the face of the daemonette. When she fires, the head of the daemonette is turned into a smoking stump of melted flesh. Mirielle then growls before kicking the corpse 15 times angrily. She growls in anger before taking a few deep breaths. “Alright, we’ll finish scouring the station and then we need to have a discussion.”


	44. Chapter 44

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Fenror realizes just how far up the creek he is.

Chapter 44 (Fenror’s POV)  
You wake up with a headache and a foggy sensation in your head. You don't remember falling asleep or dreaming but you know that you were asleep. You open your eyes and it takes a few minutes for them to adjust. You're in a dimly lit room. When you try to move, you can't. You look down and see that you're chained to an uncomfortable metal chair. You look around at the room that you're in. It's disturbing to say the least. It's dimly lit by a few light sources and grey. The room is scattered with what looks like torture equipment and sex toys. The floor of the room is covered with dried blood and probably semen. It smells awful. You can hear the faint rumble of ship engines.

Suddenly, Simian walks into the room. He's wearing a bright pink dress shirt, dark purple dress vest, dark purple dress pants, black dress shoes, and a bright blue tie. The tie has a pin on it. He looks disgustingly gaudy. "Oh good, you're finally awake." Simian says gleefully. "Simian, what's going on? If this is a prank, It's in awful taste." You say nervously. Simian grins sadistically. "No. This definitely ain't a prank. We're deathly serious here." His voice sounds different. It's higher pitched and scratchier than normal. "Ok. So what's going on here and where are we?" You ask nervously. Simian walks up to you and sits on your lap. "What's going on; I've kidnapped you. Where we are; we're currently traveling through the warp without a gellar field." You recoil in fear. "Without a gellar field?! Are you completely insane?! That's leaving us as a free game for any daemon that happens to see this ship!" Simian chuckles. It's a horrible sound. Like a sadistic vulture. "Oh believe me my dear Fenror, that's something I'm completely comfortable with." "What are you talking abou…" Your voice trails off when you get a better look at the pendant on his tie. It's black with a purple symbol engraved onto it. It looks like a corrupt mixture of the Male and female gender symbols. The mark of slaanesh. You realize just how deep the pile of shit that you've found yourself in is. You look up to Simian's face in horror. His smile widens to almost cartoonish levels. It looks like his face is starting to tear at the edges of his lips. You see that his teeth have been sharpened into points and polished until they gleam silver. "My god." You whisper in horror. He laughs shrilly. "Now you see what's happening here. Isn't it exciting?" He asks while cupping your chin. "No. No." You say. His smile fades slightly. "Guess I should've expected that reaction. But maybe I'll get you to see where I'm coming from. I'll see you later." He licks your face before walking away. Once he's gone, you feel bile rising in your throat. You can't stop it and you throw up all over your chest and legs. "Omnissiah protect me. Oh omnissiah..protect my coworkers." You spit out another piece of vomit onto the floor. "What happened to you, Simian? What happened to you?" You ask desperately. You know in your heart of hearts that he can't be saved. You want to cry.


	45. Chapter 45

Chapter 45  
After spending several more hours scouring the station looking for daemonettes, you're 99 percent sure that all of them have been killed. So everyone is in the wreckage of the dining area sitting around a table. Everyone but djarra, who stands next to the table. You sigh and fold your hands. "Alright. So here's the facts as I know it. Simian has kidnapped fenror for some slaaneshi related plot. The daemonette mentioned ascension, so Simian’s probably planning on offering him up as a sacrifice to slaanesh to win her favor.” “You know an awful lot about slaanesh for a ‘loyalist’.” Djaraa says. You look at her with a withering glare. “None of us are loyalists. Not pure loyalists. If we were, we would’ve tried stabbing you with bayonets the first time we saw you. But instead, we let a freeloader of a necron live on this station.” Djarra narrows her eyes. “Point taken.” You groan. “Let’s get back to brass tacks. Fenror’s been kidnapped and is probably going to be murdered as a sacrifice to the ruinous powers! Can we focus on that little detail please?” You say with exasperation. “Wh-what are we going to do? We can’t c-contact the inquisition. This is the second time in recent months we’ve had interactions with chaos.” Olivia says. “Yes. And if they did an investigation of this station, they’d almost certainly find evidence of Djarra and then execute us for heresy. So if fenror is going to be saved, it’ll have to be up to us.” Sigurdsson says while fixing one of his arms, removing daemonette teeth from it. “Well, we all have trackers implanted in us that have a range of 1000 light years. So we’ll be able to track him. We just need a way to follow simian.” Sigurdsson removes a particularly large tooth from his forearm. “The shuttle attached to the station has warp capability. But definitely not enough fuel to follow Simian’s ship. And it definitely doesn’t have the technology to hide itself. If we followed it, he would know. And he’d destroy us.” He says while handing the tooth to Djarra. She examines it and gives him a nod. “I might have a solution to that problem. I’ll need to retrieve it from my chambers. Meet me on the hull of the station in...ten minutes.” She says before leaving the room. “What is she getting from her chambers?’ Olivia asks. Sigurdsson shrugs. “I have no idea. It could be literally anything. We’ll just have to see.” 

Exactly ten minutes on the dot, djarra meets up with the rest of you on the station’s hull. “This had better be good Djarra. How exactly are we going to follow simian without being seen?” You ask her. “With this.” She produces a small metal cube that she holds in one of her hands. The cube is made out of the same metal that she is and has glowing blue-green symbols engraved onto it. “Is this some sort of necron teleportation device? Because I don’t think teleporting onto his ship is a good idea. Or is this something else?” Olivia asks. “It’s something else.” She tosses the cube straight up into the air. When it’s 10 feet away from the station, the cube activates. It releases a giant wave of bright green light. When the light clears, there’s another ship floating over the station. It’s black with glowing green energy and shaped like a crescent. “My personal Doom Scythe. It’s beautiful, isn’t it?” She asks with pride. It’s definitely interesting to look at. “It has been modified to have an atmosphere. That way, you won’t need to be relying on oxygen supplies the entire time.” She says. “Why does it have an atmosphere? Necrons don’t need to breathe.” Sigurdsson asks. She turns to face Sigurdsson. “I had it modified because of you, my love. This was back when you still had lungs. A cryptek from another dynasty owed me a favor from before the great sleep. So I had him modify it for me. And when I saw you again, you had removed your lungs.” She says. Sigurdsson shrugs. He looks embarrassed. “Look. I know you two are very much in love, but can we get to the chase please? You two can flirt after fenror ISN’T in imminent danger of being sacrificed to the dark gods?” Djarra sighs. “Alright. I’ll enter the doom scythe and lower it so you can get inside.” She leaps up to the doom scythe and enters it. She then maneuvers it and all of you climb inside. There are multiple uncomfortable looking chairs inside of it and a central control panel. “With this, we’ll be able to travel faster than light without having to risk the warp. Far superior to the human method of faster than light travel.” She sits in her control chair. “This will be an interesting flight.” She says. “W-what do you mean, interesting?” Olivia asks nervously. “Well the last time I piloted my craft was at the end of the war in heaven. Which was..60 million years ago. So I haven’t piloted in a long time. And while I’m fairly confident in my abilities, there’s a small chance I’ll fly us into a black hole, a star, or something along those lines.” She says flippantly. You shoot a look at Sigurdsson. He shrugs while buckling himself into his seat. “Buckle up, my human...acquaintances. We’re not really friends now that I think about it. Fenror needs to be saved, and this is our best option.” “Wait, shouldn’t we..” You try to say before Djarra interrupts you again. “And Awaaay we go!” The ship suddenly zips into space with blinding speed. Like it or not, your conceivable future is on this ship. You’re glad that you remembered to feed G-45 before you left. He suffered minor injuries from a daemonette’s claws, but he’ll be fine. Tyranids are a tough bastard of a race after all. And a daemonette is as well protected as an unarmored human. So he’s fine.


	46. Chapter 46

Chapter 46: (Fenror’s POV)  
Somehow, amidst all the horror that you’ve found yourself in, you’ve actually fallen asleep. You aren’t sure if this is natural or chemically induced, but you know that you’re dreaming. You’re lost in some chasm of impossible geometry. The angles are wrong, the colors are wrong, the air is wrong. Everything is wrong. And you’re being followed by something. You can’t see it, but you know it’s there. You can hear it breathing excitedly. You turn a corner and are faced by a swarm of innumerable daemonettes. They quickly overpower you and tear you into pieces. And they all have Simian’s face. They all laugh with his evil, distorted laugh. You wake up with a start. You’re still tied to a chair on a chaos ship. You’re still covered in dried tears and vomit. The room still smells of dried blood and semen. But now, Simian is sitting in a wooden chair in front of you. He’s holding a plastic bag with a yellow smiley face printed on the side. “Have a wonderful day!” Is printed below the smiley face in bright pink letters. If you ever see the color pink again if you survive this ordeal, you’ll probably scream. 

“Wakey wakey, eggs and bakey!” Simian says with his disgustingly cheery voice. “How’d you sleep?” You don’t say anything. “Probably well, considering I had this chamber pumped full of knockout gas. And the target doesn’t need lungs for it to work. It also works on exposed skin.” He sits cross legged on the floor and reaches into his bag. He pulls out a cylindrical yellow sponge cake wrapped in plastic. “Found a whole container of these about 3 years ago. They’re about 25,000 years old. But they never go bad.” He unwraps it and eats it in two bites. “You want one?” He asks, holding one up to you. You spit on it. He shrugs and eats it. “Fine. More for me.” He then begins to eat so many of these sponge cakes. It’s starting to get disgusting to look at. He eats 25 of them in one sitting. Once he’s done, he licks his fingers and then takes a small ziploc bag out of his vest. It’s filled with a bright pink powder. “What in the god emperor’s name is that?” You ask. “Cocaine. It’s cocaine mixed with gunpowder and powdered glass. Only the best of the best.” He snorts half of it before offering it to you. “Obviously not, you degenerate.” You say. She shrugs. “Suit yourself.” He snorts the last of it and growls in pleasure. “Oh yeah! That wakes you up in the morning.” You sigh in a combination of disgust and sadness. “What..happened to you, Simian? You were a loyal subject of the emperor.” Simian scoffs. “The emperor. The corpse on the golden seat that’s done nothing for 10,000 years. Slaanesh on the other hand is much MUCH more impressive. Since her birth during the fall of the eldar, she has risen to become the most powerful of all of the chaos gods.” “Which still pales in comparison to the omnissiah. Following a whore god isn’t impre…” He interrupts you by smacking you across the face.

“HOW DARE YOU!?” He screams before smacking you again. He splits your lip open. You feel blood dripping down your face. “Slaanesh is beyond perfection. She is beyond beauty. She’s..” “A psychotic whore obsessed with excess. That’s all she is and all she ever will be, traitor.” You spit blood onto his fine clothing. He growls before turning to leave. “I see we won’t be getting anywhere for now. I’ll talk to you later. Maybe then, you’ll listen to what I have to say.” When he leaves, you smile slightly. You managed to get under his skin in a major way. Small victories. Which is about as good as it gets here. 

Suddenly, the chair you’re sitting in starts humming before it becomes electrified. Pure agony shoots through your body as you scream. You can smell circuitry frying and skin burning. It electrocutes you for 3 minutes before it stops. You collapse back in the chair and breathe heavily. That was a punishment for daring to insult slaanesh. You think. Or maybe it was going to happen regardless of what happened. He worships chaos now after all. But still, small victories.


	47. Asteroids and torture.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The crew on the ship enter an asteroid field and fenror is tortured by his former friend.

Chapter 47 (Sigurdsson’s POV)

According to your instruments implanted inside of you, you’ve been travelling in Djarra’s ship for 3 days. She hasn’t flown you into a star, thankfully. She has however, flown you into an asteroid field. Hundreds of tiny asteroids crash into the ship, causing it to vibrate. Larger ones cause it to rumble and rock when they hit the ship. Mirielle looks terrible. Her face is turning a pale green and she looks like she’s holding back the urge to vomit. “Are you alright, Mirielle?” You ask her.

“No. I feel like shit.” She says while holding her hands to her head. “Something about this ship and the way it moves disagrees with me. The vibrations do not vibe with me.” She says queasily. “I actually like the vibrations, if I’m honest.” Olivia says. “Good for you.” Mirielle says while cradling her head. “There’s also the fact that we’ll have to fight slaaneshi cultists. That’s not making me feel great.” 

Djarra scoffs. “I really don’t see what’s so frightening about slaaneshi cultists. If they’re anything like her ‘daemonettes’, I’m not impressed.” She says. “You know how evil and hedonistic the drukhari are?” Mirielle asks. “If by ‘evil’, you mean pathetic, then yes.” Djarra says while Mireille rolls her one biological eye. “Well, slaaneshi cultists are worse. So much worse.” Djarra shakes her head. “Riiiight. Oh shit..” She jerks the steering system to the right to avoid crashing into a giant asteroid. It causes all of you to be thrown slightly. Mirielle gags and looks like she’s about to throw up. “Don’t you dare throw up in my ship! It’s worth more than all of your organs!” “WELL DON’T THROW US INTO FUCKING ASTEROIDS!” Mireille yells. “She has a point, my love. Just watch where you’re going please.” You say politely. Mirielle groans. “I’m going to lie down. Maybe it’ll help me not feel like death. 

(Fenror’s POV)  
You don’t sleep. Your injuries keep yourself from sleeping. You can feel that a lot of your skin has serious burns. Thank god that you’ve had most of your flesh removed. Most of your remaining skin and flesh is on your back. 

You look down at the chair. It’s bolted to the floor. Even so, you try rocking it to see if you can get yourself off this chair. It doesn’t work. Say what you will about him, but Simian took the extra effort to make sure this chair isn’t going to move. The welding that keeps this chair to the floor is very well done. Unfortunately. 

“What the fuck are you doing?” Simian says. You look up to see him holding a..long metal pole with some sort of electrical emitter hooked up to it. “Are you trying to escape? Nothing would happen even if you got out of that chair. This ship is swarming with daemonettes, cultists, and other things. And even if you somehow managed to overpower everyone on this ship, you need more than one person to operate a ship of this size. And even if you somehow managed to get this ship into real space, there’s no-one that's going to save you. Especially not your coworkers.” “What did you do to them?” You ask in horror. Simian smiles evilly. “I left a ton of daemonettes on your station. They’re more than enough to kill everyone on that station. You hope to the omnissiah that Djarra helped them, as heretical as that thought is. If Djarra helped them, then they probably have a chance of survival. “And even if they survived, they definitely aren’t following us.” He says before activating the rod and jamming it into your chest. You groan in agony as the electricity courses through your body. It’s different from the electricity from before. The electricity from before was meant to damage. This one is less powerful, and yet far more painful somehow. After an eternity of pain, he pulls it out of you. “And even if they survived, they aren’t coming for you. We would’ve detected them if they were following us.” He turns the rod off. “It occurs to me that I never explained to you why I started worshipping slaanesh.” “I never asked, traitor.” You say angrily. He smacks you across the face with the pipe. It breaks a lot of your teeth. “You did. You asked me ‘what happened to you, simian?’ You asked. So I’m going to tell you. And then torture you for a couple hours.” “Yaaaaay.” You say sarcastically. He smacks the pipe across your knees. Your sensors indicate that one of them has been fractured. It can be repaired or replaced. “Anyway, here’s what happened to me. About a decade ago, I was doing a normal run. But then the gellar field failed for ten minutes. And for a minute, I saw...her.” His voice dips to reverent tones. “I saw...Slaanesh. And she was beautiful. Beyond beautiful. So...perfect.” He says breathlessly. “Fucking simp.” You mutter underneath your breath. Simp is a term that you learned from studying ancient texts. You’ve never had a chance to use it before, but this is a prime chance. “So when I saw her, I realized that no being that beautiful, that pure could be wrong. I saw the lie of the imperium.” “You were lied to by a corrupting monster.” You say bitterly. 

Simian shrugs. “Maybe. But it feels amazing.” He takes the pipe and cracks it across your chest with it activated. You groan in pain. “You see fenror, there is a reason for torturing you. I need you to be properly prepared so when I sacrifice you to slaanesh, the greater the chance will be that she’ll answer my call and grant me what I want.” “And what...is that?” You ask while spitting out blood and shards of your teeth. “Why, to become a demon of course. You see, worshipping slaanesh is great. But after a while, the highs stop becoming as high. And the lows keep getting lower. So I figured becoming a demon would be the best high of all time!” 

You close your eyes and decide to just bear it. Until he kills you or someone saves you, it’s all you can do. It’s taking all of your will to not cry. If your coworkers died because of the daemonettes, you pray that their deaths were quick and painless. But deep down you know that it wasn’t.


	48. Chapter 48

Chapter 48 (Olivia’s POV)

Some time later, you realize that djarra has slowed down the ship. “What’s going on?” You ask. “The instruments have detected a ship in our path.” “Is it Simian’s?” Mirielle asks from her spot on the floor. “No. I believe it belongs to the rather pathetic species known as the Tau.” She says with disgust in her voice. “Then why do you even care? It’s not like the tau are a threat to necrons. Hell, they’re not even really a threat to humanity. If the heads of the military decided that they really wanted the tau dead, it would probably take 50 years tops to wipe them out.” Mirielle says. She looks less sickly than she did before. Perhaps lying on the floor actually helped with her nausea. “I’m slowing down because of the massive slaanesh symbol scorched on the side of the derelict tau ship. And considering that the man we’re hunting is a follower of that particular chaos god, I thought that you would want to know." Mirielle sits up and walks over to her. She hisses. “Good fuck. That ship has been through the wringer.” She motions for you to the console. On the console is a video display of the tau ship. The engines have been shot off, there are multiple holes in the hull, and a giant slaanesh symbol has been scorched onto the side of the ship. There are also tau corpses pinned to the outside of the hull. Their bodies are horribly mutilated and their faces have been painted bright pink and purple. “G-good god.” You mutter with vague fear. “I’m not sure if we should investigate. If anyone’s still alive on that ship, they’re almost certainly not sane anymore. And even if they were, I doubt that they’d know where Simian is going.” Sigurdsson says. ‘It might be prudent to check anyway.” Mireille says. Djarra nods. “Agreed.” 

About 15 minutes later, she docks the doom scythe to the tau ship. The atmosphere on the tau ship is still intact, so you don’t need to put on an atmospheric protection suit. Which has its benefits and disadvantages. Once you board the tau ship, the stench of scorched metal and flesh. The lights are dim and flickering. “Stick together everyone. I don’t want any of you alone if something is still alive on this ship.” Djarra says with an air of almost maternal concern. “I am agreeing with you.” Mirielle says. 

All four of you explore the ship for twenty minutes. As you go through the ship, the stench of rot and scorched flesh gets stronger and stronger. “I’m detecting a large organic mass hanging from the ceiling of one of the rooms about twenty meters ahead.” Sigurdsson says. “I have a bad feeling about this.” Mireille mutters. You enter the room to see a horrific sight. dangling from the ceiling is a massive ball of tau bodies. Their flesh has been fused together into one amorphous blob. The room reeks of scorched and rotting flesh. “G-g-good god.” You manage to stutter out in disgust and horror. One of the heads of the tau opens its eyes and looks at your group before opening its mouth and screaming. The scream is terrible. It’s of indescribable pain and rage. Suddenly, every tau that’s still alive in that ball starts screaming. The screaming echoes off the walls of the room. The ball begins to rock back and forth before it manages to fall to the floor. It impacts with a loud, wet “THWACK!” The vibration from the impact shakes the room. “Steady. Steady.” Djarra mutters. Several tau begin peeling themselves off of the ball and start shambling towards you. They’ve been twisted and corrupted by whatever simian did to them. Their limbs are elongated and twisted and their teeth look too big for their mouths. They screech in feral rage. Djarra throws her spear into the head of one of them before having it fly back into her hand. You have no idea how that works.

But you’re far more focused on the rage and warp fuelled tau. When you shoot a tau, their blood is a bluish-purple color. They screech and chitter to communicate with each other. One of them tries to jump on Sigurdsson and gets facefull of flamethrower. He picks it up and throws it at a group of other tau. The tau that are impacted by the flaming one burst into flame. They screech in agony and rage as they go up like dry twigs. More and more tau start peeling off the ball and start shambling/running towards you. Thankfully, they’re extremely weak from their exposure to the warp and because they’re tau and tau are pathetic in hand to hand combat. Mirielle shoves the barrel of one of her plasma pistols down the throat of a tau and fires. Through the skin of the tau, you see the blue glow of plasma scorching through their neck. After ten minutes of fighting, the tau stop peeling off of the ball. The ball vibrates angrily. Djarra walks up to a dead tau and pokes it with her spear. “Pathetic.” You hear her muttering. She then walks up to the ball and pokes it with the spear. It sinks in about a foot with a wet squelching noise before she pulls it out. A tiny trickle of blood comes out. And then it turns into a fountain of blood. A fountain that shoots out and absolutely drenches Djarra in blood. For about 15 seconds. After 15 seconds, it stops shooting out and turns into a trickle. Djarra takes a few steps back before tripping on a severed tau arm. She falls onto her back with a loud clang. It’s honestly slightly funny. Suddenly, you hear laughing from the tau ball. One of the tau heads is laughing maniacally. The laugh is high pitched and shrill. Then another tau starts laughing. And another. And another. Soon, hundreds of tau are all laughing hysterically. It’s incredibly unnerving. Djarra walks away from the ball and walks up to the three of you. “Destroy it. Let nothing remain.” She orders. “With pleasure, milady.” Mirielle says. All three of you light up onto the tau ball. Sigurdsson with his flamethrowers, Mirielle with overcharged plasma shots, and you with sustained laz rifle fire. The tau ball is reduced to a puddle of molten flesh after 3 minutes of sustained fire. In the center of the puddle is a metal figurine in the shape of what you assume to be slaanesh. You destroy it with a shot from your laz rifle. Djarra shakes her head. “We’re leaving. Now.” You follow her back to the doom scythe. As she walks, the blood that’s covering her slowly starts..disintegrating? You guess it’s probably the same technology that allows her metal body to heal from wounds. 

Once the doom scythe is an appropriate distance away from the tau ship, she fires its cannons at the tau ship. The tau ship explodes in a crimson and bright purple fireball. “Perhaps I see why they’re afraid of these people.” You think you hear her muttering to herself.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Evil dead 2 reference


	49. Chapter 49

Chapter 49 (Fenror’s POV)  
You wake up to a weight on your lap. You don’t open your eyes because you don’t want to see what it is. You thank yourself that you had your sexual organs removed; because you’re terrified of what they would do to you if you still had a penis. “Why are you so important to master Simian? You just look like an old man. What’s different about you?” The voice is feminine and sounds sickly sweet. You open your eye a crack and shudder at what you see. A daemonette is sitting on your lap. She’s completely naked save for a few tiny scraps of fabric. Her body is covered in tattoos and piercings. “Maybe I can figure it out.” She sticks out her tongue. It’s long, thin, and jet black. She slowly runs it across your face. It feels like it has microscopic barbs on it. As she runs it across your face, you feel it cutting up your face. She laps up the blood greedily. “Hmm...Slightly oily. But nothing I haven’t had before. You’re a real enigma!” 

Her sentence turns into a scream as something grabs her and throws her across the room. “I THOUGHT I TOLD YOU THAT YOU AREN’T ALLOWED TO TOUCH THIS PRISONER!” She hisses in anger and whoever threw him off of you. “And why not?” She demands. “This is Simian’s pet. Not yours. You’re allowed to ‘play’ with the other prisoners.” Says the other voice. The voice is masculine, deep and weirdly musical. She groans. “The other prisoners are boring. He’s interesting.” “Well that’s too fucking bad. Now ain’t it?” There’s a loud distorted noise mixed with a scream. When you open your eyes, you see that the daemonette has been reduced into a pile of gore. Standing at the side of the gore pile is a space marine. He’s wearing bright pink and purple armor with gems embedded in it. His helmet has ram like horns. 12 pipe-organ esque pipes jut out of his back vertically. He’s holding a rifle with a face on the muzzle. You don’t see a magazine on the weapon. “A sonic weapon.” You mutter to yourself. Sonic weaponry are the signature weapons of the space marines that are dedicated to slaanesh. Strapped to his back is some sort of obscene instrument. It looks like an electric guitar. He walks up and kneels in front of you. “Count your blessings, old man. You’re being treated nicely compared to the other prisoners.” You try not to imagine what horrors the other prisoners are being subjected to if what you’ve endured is considered nice by their standards.


End file.
